I'd guess the demise of the taxi business was the result of very rapidly diminishing sales volume. From something like 2000 to 680 to 13 over the 3 years. Not exactly a screaming success. DeSoto in particular was doing extremely well with the NYC taxi business in those years.

On May 5, 1948 Albert S. Mathews, the President of Packard Federal Corporation, died. Packard Federal was the distributor for Packard taxis. Do you think his death had anything to do with terminating taxi production/sales?

Mal, what fields where you trying to update? I just made a change to my project description and it worked just fine.

Let me know what you did, so I can try to reproduce the problem and fix it.

Thanks!

Hi, What you have pictured looks correct. It's the same as on my 1951 300. Not sure what you mean by the seal retainer. The outer seal is under the stamped metal piece ( or maybe behind the backing plate )that will come off when you remove the 4 bolts that hold everything together. To change the inner seal, which is probably more important, you will have to remove the break backing plate and pull the axel out. I used a gear puller with a knocker on the handle that is part of the puller. The bearing pulls out with the axel. The axel bearing should be greased with a good quality bearing grease the same way you grease front wheel bearings. An incorrect preconceived idea I always had was that the differential gear lube oiled the bearings as well as the rear end gears. Wrong.

The rebuilt clutch is here. So, if I can manage to get to the shop I may get more work done on the engine. find it interesting that the original markings are on top of the pistons in my engine. They are all labeled with a Y, 12, and the cylinder number. They are still evident after the original 40,081 miles showing on the odometer.

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the v12 hood should be real close...Im hoping to assemble hood, fenders on car on sun....all painted and im ready to drive her!!!!!

The taxi cabs that were sold in 1950 were built on the Super Eight 7 passenger chassis of a 141 inch wheel.

All taxi cabs sold were handled by the independent Packard Federal Corp.

In 1948 Packard sold around 2000 taxi cabs.


John F. Shireman

Trunnion Block.
Referring to Tom's comment that the trunnion block was introduced on the 1930 7th Series cars. At the risk of being picky, the trunnion block was introduced on the 1929 6th Series. According to the Turnquist book it can also be found on some late 443 Series (1928). Turnquist also says that it was invented by a Frenchman and the right to its exclusive use was purchased by Packard.
The trunnion block is on the LHS of both of my 6th Series cars, they are both RHD.
David

BigKev,

Just tried to update some details for my '41 Coupe entry but it didn't work. Tried a couple of times. Could you have a look please?

You are right they were indeed holdovers. that's why the chassis number 2320-5 includes the dash 5. It's the system that Packard used to identify the 23rd series cars built in 49 for 1950. Packard had dealers send back the ID plates to be renumbered.
I guess if we are being really accurate, they did not build 6 cylinder cars in 1950. However, they were sold as 50s.
So, it makes sense to use which ever system to identify them that suits the situation best. I personally list these 13 cars as 50s by using the Packard system of listing them as 1950s.
Sorry if this whole thing has been confusing.