These guys rebuilt my starter and generator, and say they can rebuild pretty much anything, if that is something that appeals to you:

Buchannan Auto Electric

(I am specifically speaking about the window motors, why get NOS ones or adapt something else when you can get the old ones rebuilt).

Yes if it's the same kind of charger as mine, it is trying to determine the voltage and polarity, because it has an error function to keep bad things from happening if you connect it backwards or to a direct short. So if the battery is completely dead it won't be able to do anything.

The floor starter can be finicky. I don't know enough about it, but IIRC I took it apart and cleaned it, and it is generally reliable. Others can weigh in.

Before that, my mechanic at the time wired up a separate starter button under the dash, which was simple to do, it just runs a separate wire to the solenoid. Probably good to have that anyhow. You want one of those spring-loaded 50A capable push-buttons, that you can get at any hardware store.

Check out the cross-reference on this site:

Cross Reference -Radiator and Cooling

That looks like quite a find, a reputable manufacturer as well.

There are two separate issues:

The first is good practice, as detailed below, to make sure the starting system is in fine fettle, and the battery is maintained, eg with a battery tender.

The reason to have one of those battery starters/quick chargers (if they exist, I still haven't found one that is specifically ok for a 6v system), or in lieu of that, keep a spare battery in the trunk, is for cheap insurance when on a trip, in case one accidentally drains the battery for some reason, perhaps from one's own stupidity, given that few motorists are even willing to give a jump these days.

Well, there are three reasons I can think of, personally:

One - on a trip do something stupid like leaving the lights on.

Two - I once had a problem where we parked and went on a hike, and the engine compartment temperature was really high, from being parked in the sun. The battery suddenly lost the ability to crank with any vigor. I fixed that by opening the hood and waited for 15 minutes, and it started.

Three (similar to two) - dealing with a vapor lock issue after, say stopping somewhere for lunch, and running the battery down trying to resolve it.

I have often thought of just carrying an extra charged battery in the trunk, thar I would maintain otherwise with a battery tender. Haven't done it yet, though. People say with some precautions you can Jumpstart from a 12v source but I haven't had to resort to that yet.

There is a nice article in "The Packard Cormorant" glossy mag put out by the Packard Club, just came in the mail today, that talks about the history of the various postwar engines. The 288/327/329 were all based on a rework of the 282 engine. The 356 was a new engine in 1940? to replace the V12, shared few parts with the 282/288/327/359, and was ~125 pounds heavier than the latter. Not sure how many pounds more the 9-main 327/359 was, but it used a block that was the same size as the earlier 5-main version.

Reading through the forums it appears there used to be an extra-thick "export" head gasket available that could have been used to reduce compression ratio on the 359 in the past. But also that folks have tried double head gaskets with little success. Some folks have suggested milled pistons.

You should be able to work out the chamber volume from the calculated compression ratio, or vice-versa.

D = Bore Diameter, in
A = pi*D^2/4, in^2
S = stroke, in
C = Chamber Volume, in^3

C.R. = (A*S+C)/C