1905 Earle C Anthony opens a Packard agency in Los Angeles at the age of 25. Later that year Earle Anthony becomes the Southern California Distributor for Packard.

John F. Shireman

Quote:

Dave,

Problem was that I ordered and received the parts when work started on my '41 but it was well over 6 months later when time came to mount these parts and the discrepancy was noticed.

P.S. - yes, I have seen "thin shell" (meaning pre-war) Packard rod bearings that "flaked". Not often, but have seen it.

Here's how you do it. You DONT change the engine oil, use only a non approved (meaning non-detergent) engine oil, and let it sit for a while. Then start it and run it for a while, then shut it off for another indeterminte period.

If you do that often enough over years - perhaps even months, - yes, you can get the "thin shell" copper-lead bearings to decay.

Nothing like a litte ignorance and abuse to ruin even a Packard engine.

Since I first went into Charlie Last's shop on Valley Blvd. in 1955, and clowned around with him till his death ( I was the guy who conducted his obit. at his funeral, and my Twelve led the procession to his grave-site,) I think I just might know who "worked for him". Would be curious to know who this "dear departed friend" would be. By chance you referring to Ted B ? (he is still dead..). His grave site is next to his first wife's. Her name was _______

To demonstrate that you DO know what you are talking about, tell us where on the engine block Charlie would "die stamp" his name, and what he'd done on any particular engine...(for some reason I never understood, he insisted on doing that "die stamping" bit himself - he even HID the damn dies!)

Color is blaze red crystal (not sure of the #).

Basically it should say Copyright XXXX (after 1958), and identify the copy right holder. If not, then we shall assume it is either a original Packard piece, or a copy thereof.

Now the way I understood it (and correct me if I am wrong), but the original ones, I belive, were 3-hole punched and keep in binders by the mechanics. But I belive they did have "compliation" books that were bound with all the updated information and the end of a series set. So for example a mechanic in 1948 would have started their binder, and kept adding to it through 1954. Near the end of '54 Packard produced a 1948-54 Book that included everthing back to 1948 in one complete set.

Now I have a reprint of the 48-54 that I bought from Faxon. But as that was a modern reprint, I choose not to use that for the website to be respectful of their work even though it does not have any modern copyright notice. So I found an orignal one on ebay that was three-holded punched and held together with brads. So I used that one for the website. The covers between the two are a little different. The text and design are the same on the covers, but the color of both are bit different, and my original has notes on the pages, as some duplicate pages which contain an original, and then an updated page. I guess whom ever owned the book kept both pages instead of discarding the outdated page.

So frankly its a gray area. I would say that if you know the piece was a reprint from a vendor or club, be respectful of that. But if you dont know it's origin, and it does not have a modern copyright, then I say it's fair game.

The PAC service letter and SC reprints are not fair game as I belive that are reformated into a new compilation piece. So by that act, it is an original work of PAC regardless of copyright notice or lack thereof. But an original Packard formated piece should be fair game if it doesnt have a modern copyright and it wasnt knowingly bought as a reprint from a vendor or club.

I hope this all makes sense.

My first Packard service manual reprint was purchased waaay back in 1977 - the one for 1955-56, of course. It had been reprinted by (Seebach's) Small World Press. A few years later, I picked up the companion parts book. In the mid 1980s, I picked up the 1951-54 service manual and 1948-54 parts book. I assumed SWP had reprinted all the service manuals and parts books that were available through PAC and the usual vendors at that time, but I could be wrong. SWP was so good that I went to them to have the 63-64 Avanti shop manual and parts catalog reprinted during my tour of duty in Youngstown, back in the late 1980s.

At some point in the 1990s, I believe, PAC switched to a different printer, whose name I do not recall; I had all the manuals I needed. Service Counselor reprints were done by someone else, but the print quality of the revised editions is not as good, IMHO.

Also, cover stock of reprints is often lighter weight. For example, the original 1955-56 shop manual is a heavy leather-grained and -colored stock

My rule of thumb for printed matter is that if doesn't have a formal Copyright notice (or similar caveat) and is not identified as a reprint (but look hard, as I've often found them in the darndest places), then it should be fair game.

A question for the very knowledgeable in old literature. Does anyone know who how many made repro manuals? I have many obvious reprints but they all have logos or names inside such as Small World Press or Crank & Hope. They have similar quality in print, paper & cover textures. I have a couple that have quite different paper (glossy instead of flat), excellent print quality and no ID as a reprint, but the cover texture looks similar to reprint. Question is whether to waste time to scan or not.

For web viewing, 200dpi is fine. Most people do not realize that your monitor is only capable of viewing 72-96dpi. 300pdi does make the files clearer when you are zooming in on a small part of a picture, but you take a hit in the file size accordingly. 300dpi clarity really comes in the play when you are doing printing, the more dots on the paper, the clearer the image. But on a monitor that is only capable of 72-96 dpi, it actually averaging the 300 dpi down to the monitor's dpi. Now the more dots you have to average, the clearer it is,but at some point you are just wasting file size to minimal quality improvments, unless there are super fine details you are trying to pick out when zoomed in. But the realitive dpi quality on the printed Packard material is probably way less than 300 anyway, so nothing gained at higher resolutions.

Howard is actually rescanning the 55-56 Service Manual at 200 (I think it was 150 or lower before) to make some if the pictures and illustrations clearer. I will start to replace the section PDFs with his updated versions as he sends them over (thanks Howard for offering to do that!)

Getting back to missing content, in constructing the 1955-56 Service Index, I cited all known references, but we don't have copies of every one of those here at P'Info. So, when you see document reference where the text isn't in blue, it's not an error, but a visual cue that the document is not avalaible for viewing.

One area that we're particularly short on is the Studebaker Service Bulletins (SSBs), and there's plenty of good info for the V8 owners in them. While BigKev has a cache of SSBs available from 1957-60, there are plenty of gaps in coverage of Packard topics.

However, unlike the Service Counselor, Studebaker's service newsletter wasn't issued on a monthly basis. They ight go a couple months without an issue; ocassionally, you got two issues in one month.

All that aside, here's a list of the missing SSBs that we need:

No. (Date)
319 (JAN 1957)
320 (JAN 1957)
328 (SEP 1957)
330 (OCT 1957)
337 (MAY 1958)
355 (JUN 1960)
356 (JUL 1960
358 (OCT 1960)
359 (JAN 1961)
360 (MAR 1961)

If you have any of these original issues, please consider donating a scan.