You should not need the adapters on your car as it has 3/16 brake tubing. Brake hoses should just screw in at the front, same with the tubing at the rear.

Please do not reuse you old steel brake tubing. Even though it may look OK on the outside--remember how wheel cylinders pit on the inside?--the tubing can do it on the inside too and it has only a .03 wall. When your grill is planted firmly in the backside of an Escalade owned by a cranky lawyer you will fervently wish you had spent the 4-5 hours necessary to tube the car.

You can buy enough tubing to do the entire car in standard lengths at Napa for about $30 bucks or so and it will be the cheapest and most important part of your restoration.

I like to use the standard lengths as I don't have to do the double flare and with a bit of planning, it will look quite tidy. To make tight bends near the end of a tube, insert a close fitting pin punch a tad deeper than the length of the flare nut, and use it as a handle to make the bend.

On my own cars, or if the customer does not mind, I bore 6 or 8 1 1/4" holes around the periphery of the trans portion of the bell housing. This lets a lot of heat out. I also give the convertors and the inside of the bell housing a light coat of flat black to help radiant transfer. Seems to keep them quite happy.

Scuttlebut aside, Ultras are not hot running transmissions unless operated for extended periods in convertor, of if the death march has already begun, heralded by the infamous slippy, groany, non-existent direct shift.

There is nothing more expensive than sentiment. And a waste of time and resources. I have made an internal decision to turn down customers in the future who ask me fix a pig as there is a pointed lack of satisfaction in pretending a mass produced automobile is intrinsically more valuable by dint of long association.

I would point out that Packard (and Studebaker) considered the complete body shell as a part, and they were available for purchase at you local dealer at least during the year of original manufacture. If you have a chance to install a better part on your car, by all means do it. IMHO

100% null problemo. They will only take the full disc and not the dog dish.

100% agree with that observation. With the exception of the quirky decklid, the car has perfect form. The windshield and top are especially nice.

Just made a driver's door panel for my 56 this evening. Used 1/8 tempered masonite as it is cheap and readily available.

I bolted the stripped old panel to the new masonite with 4 bolts and washers so it could not shift. It was then an easy matter to cut along the edge of the old panel with a fine blade in the jigsaw to make the new one the exact size. All the pertinent new holes were drilled right through the old ones for perfect location. I did the retainer clip holes by drilling 5/16 at each end of the rectangle and then squaring up the hole with the jigsaw.

After unbolting, I hit all the ragged edges with a sanding disk and beveled the edges of the panel so the material will wrap nicely. After the new panel is assembled, will paint the back with polyurethane.

Total time to make the panel came to 45 minutes including getting the tools out. I'll put them back tomorrow 'cause it was suppertime!

A nice detail to add: On V-8s with the engine number up near the fill pipe, the number was highlighted in white. The actual practice, which was carried over from the straight eights was this: Before the block was painted, the number was stamped. Somebody then took a brush with white paint and brushed a stroke over top of the number. Before the engine was painted, a piece of masking tape was haphazardly placed over the number; after painting the tape was pulled away leaving the number in the middle of a white rectangle. You can do the same after the fact with a bit of masking and a dab of white. Looks nice, costs nothing, and is very authentic.

51 200s rule. Or is it reign?!

Sure Napa has the gasket! You just buy a roll of 1/8" sheet rubberized cork from them and with about a half hour of the time you would spend looking for/ordering one you will have one on your workbench, and enough left over for another half dozen projects.

On my own car I used that wonderful cheez-whiz type of silicone and oozed a gasket in about 3 minutes. Secret is to let it sit about 1/2 hour to firm up before putting the pan up. Of course, that was about 12 years and 40K miles ago so I guess we don't really know if it will hold up....

Double amen on prying the cover off the pickup screen and cleaning it carefully!