Jim, I'm already kicking around some ideas for you rear bumper. I'll keep you posted.

I love the straight 8 Turbopackman. Runs like a swiss watch and sounds sooooo nice running a straightpipe. This baby will keep all her original running gear and even stay a radio delete. After all I do have appreciation for a fine automobile. Definately won't be anything modern here. I just need the "certain look" that differates from every other.

As a confirmed automatic guy, I do feebly remember the olden days of sticks and believe it was there for the times one has to be a professional contortionist or would find it handy to have at least one extra foot to start on a hill.

One for the clutch, one to hold the brake and one to work the accelerator. The hand throttle takes the place of the extra accelerator foot. My father also used it as a rudimentary cruise control when his foot got tired.

As to why yours clicks-unknown. As I recall, the ones I've seen were just connected to accelerator linkage via bowden type cable and basically moved the linkage same as usual only further up.

You can pick up a thermostat locally but if the retainer ring was removed with thermostat and left out then that will probably be a vendor item or also available from SoCal region of PI.

I just bought a 41 120 Touring and I really love the car. Better yet, so does my wife. I have purchased the reprint owners manual as well as the shop manual (which I find a little skimpy on clear step by step directions), but since I really don't need to fix anything, not a problem.

On my dash is a small knob noted as "hand throttle" in the owner's manual. I though originally it was a choke, but it is not. It is something electric as I hear something move when I engage it. I have no idea what it is.

You are probably all laughing, but neither the Owner's manual nor the repair manual really say what the knob does. Can anyone please let me know? It is in the row of knobs left of the steering wheel.

Thanks much!

Here's an account of a road trip from New York to Detroit in the winter of 1929. From an interview with Ford designer Eugene Gregorie.

"Frank had given up a nice room in one of the big, old mansions out on West Grand Boulevard they'd had been turned into rooming houses. A nice, old lady-like gal and her daughter had this big place, and Frank was giving up the room there and taking an apartment with some other chap, so I moved up there. In the meantime, I

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went back to New York , to Long Island , to get my little French Citroen car--five horsepower Citroen. This was in early December, very cold, mean, so I went back one weekend and I started back with it for Detroit in the little convertible. No heater, cold, mean, and I got up into Pennsylvania in a little town called Hawley, broke a valve spring, went to a country garage. Talk about nerve driving a thing like that out there in those days! You couldn't have gotten a part for that thing this side of Paris .

Q: What company was it? You said Citroen.

A: Citroen, little Citroen. It was their little bread and butter car. A little, tiny five-horsepower, didn't have a...there was no starter, and didn't have a fan, or a water pump, thermo syphon cooling. It was a real adventure to drive that thing to Detroit in the Winter. Well, anyway, I got to Hawley , Pennsylvania , and had a valve spring go out on it. I went to a little, country garage, and this old fellow took the valve spring out. It was all simple you know, it only took a few minutes to get at the valve spring. He said, "Well, this looks like an inner valve spring on a '24 Buick." This is a little, tiny inner spring. So, he got one out of a trash bin he had, and popped it in there, and he said, "By golly," he says, "that'll work." So, he put the valve spring in, and Lord, the whole thing was a half hour, and two bucks, and I was on my way again. I did all right until I got up to a little place called Wayland , New York . It was about 40 miles below Rochester , and it had been snowing all day, and the snow had been laying in the fields but melting on the road. Along about 5 o'clock in the evening, it unknowingly had turned to a glaze of ice, and this little bugger spun
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around three or four times in the middle of the road and went over the corn field and laid on its beam ends.

Q: You didn't have seat belts in those days?

A: No, and they only had one door--one door on one side. Fortunately, the side with the door was up. So, I had sense enough to reach down and turn the gasoline off. It had a gasoline tank in the cowl like a Model A Ford, and I cut the gas off before it set fire to the thing. So, I got out, crawled around, straightened myself up, and along came two farmers and a Model A Ford Touring Car, and in the back they had a big piece of rope. We hooked the rope on, and tipped it up right. The three of us tipped it up, pulled it up on the road, and he towed me into Wayland, about a mile. We put the car in a little country garage there. An old gal had a little farm house down the road, so I bunked in there for two or three nights. The morning after that the snow was four feet deep up over the windows, so I was holed up there for three or four days with this little car. I went to the country garage, the rear wheel was bent, and we put it in a press and straightened the wheel out. I was really tied up there five days, then I went on, finally, to Detroit . It took me about eight or ten days to get from New York to Detroit . It was so cold going across Canada in the little convertible, I had to take newspaper and caulk the window frames up. There was no heat, and every now and then I would stop at a country store and get a cup of hot tea. They always had hot tea in Canada . I'd stand there and warm my feet, you know. I finally got to Detroit , and things were rough there. There was no work anywhere. As it happened....

Q: This is the winter of...?
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A: Winter of '29 and '30."

http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Design/Gregorie_interview.htm

Depending on the weather your trip in March could go something like this. Although, the Packard would be much more suitable for such a journey than the little Citroen.

Thanks Owen and Jay. Do you think a new thermostat would keep the engine cooler when iding?. I don't quite understand the purpose of the themostat other then helping with heat in the Winter. The man who installed the radiator said it was either removed or stuck open. Do I have to get one from a Packard supplier (Kanter or Mirratt) or can I go to Autozone or the like?

I just bought a infared thermometer on sale at Sears.

OldGold, I really can't believe you'd destroy a prime example of Packard styling!! SHAME ON YOU!!

On a serious note, YOU ARE MY HERO!!! You need to come down to Wichita and help me build the body on my Speedster!! Love the pics, keep 'em coming!! And to paraphrase an old saying, "If it's too radical, you're too old!" Just pleeeeeessseeee keep the original engine!! (Or at least a Packard V8!) Too many guy's build cars like yours and totally f' it up by putting the everyday SBC in it. Nowadays, it's totally unusual to see an original engine in a car as modified as yours. You'll have more lookers at a car show if you use the straight eight. And if you want a little extra power out of it, I know a secret or two on them!

As the man said, keep the pictures coming.

Even though I wouldn't attempt it either, I won't be one that will get pi$$'d because it's a very interesting project. Besides that, I can't even get along with a can of Bondo so really do admire your skil set and want to watch the progress.

Between you and Turbopackman, we're in for an interesting few months.

OldGold: YOU just might be the right guy to build that custom rear bumper I need which I described in my own thread on this "modifications" forum.

How about it?

Jim G