Tho' we decry modern drivetrains in old cars, yours is a rare exception, like a Mercury or Olds V-8 in a 1940-41 Lincoln Continental, Mercury, Cad, Chrysler V-8s in originally Ford Allards.

But something poetic about inline sixes and eights, being the only internal combustion engines with inherent balance. The Jag XK six was designed during the war, debuted 1948, so you've got something that might've been done by a sporting Packard fan long ago, given many of the home built sports cars with XK mills in the early '50s.

In other words, Kev's crisp Packard a far remove from today's usual low-horizon SBC Turbo HydraMatic in increasingly everything built before 1950.

According to Maurice Hendry, who knew what he was talking about, always got it right, in the late '30s, one of Packard's engineers, Howard Reed, a Buick alumnus, wanted Packard to produce not just an ohv, but ohc engine. He was told the noise would be unseemly in a Packard, read eat into our profit margins. Packard's side valve engines were as good as any, and the Jag XK on every engineer's list of the best internal combustion engines of the 20th century, so you've an idealized car; the 1935-37 juniors having a jaunty look lost in '38, the year Buick ended Packard's three consecutive year Gallup Poll Most Beautiful Car.

At 4.173 inches, the Jag's stroke nearly Packard's 4.25, shares a 2 3/4" crankshaft diameter with Packard, and Duesenberg J for that matter. The 3.8-liter Jag engine within a few pounds that of the Packard 245-ci six, your suspension and brakes will be happy. The initial '37 Packard six was a dog with its Chandler Groves one barrel carb. Your car's previous owner solved that.

Your '37 is also an ideal size. Keep the blackwalls and don't tart it up. Good going, Kev.

Optima offers 12- and 6-volt batteries. Comments on the above apply to both. Any Optima lasts at least twice as long as conventional.

But why a heavy, off-gassing wet battery, especially when no one will see it? Packard didn't make batteries, motor oil, brake fluid, generators, tires.

Optima Red Top 6-volt, 800 cold cranking amp batteries do not leak, are eight times more resistant to vibration than traditional lead/acid batteries, not that the this is a problem in Packards. Turns my '47 Super's gear-reduction starter easily. A decade from my previous, looks like more of the same from present. Know of a ’41 Cad getting 14 years, a Cad V-16 starting just fine on an Optima.

The best maintenance charger we found was a CTEK UC-800. Connect it, forget it. Orange light charging, green floating full up. When we find a good product that helps keep our wheeled alter egos rolling, believe in singing its praises.

For those of you comprehending “weight is the enemy”, six-volt Optimas weigh only 18 1/2 lbs. A little here, a little there, it adds up.

Additional price offset by lifespan.

A good Thanksgiving to all those here gathered.

Go with the bail, per JWL. Less is more. That, and anything more overpowers the car, esp. the relatively small junior six. The cormorant and flying lady were mainly dealer options to enhance their profit margins.

The best-looking cars invariably have the least gewgaws.

Packard Info has international users, befitting devotees of the product once the most widely recognized automotive name in the world after only the ubiquitous Ford.

I've swapped info with PIers across the sea, even as i earlier corresponded with Packard owners in Italy, England, and sold parts to a fellow One-Sixty owner in Norway.

Most European, Scandinavian nations, and Britain, are banning internal combustion automobiles in a dozen short years. For now, i.c. collector cars unaffected. For now. But increasingly, cities, states, insurance companies here in the US may make life complicated for old car owners.

The facts Icarus, i, and others mention are prelude to what we, as owners of arguably the consistently finest production automobiles of the first half of the 20th century, are prepared to do to ensure a future beyond the few years some here gathered imagine they've left before joining their ancestors.

An inexact, one-word negate of this very real and fast approaching situation gets us nowhere.

For example, and scratch a vintage car buff often discover a fellow railfan: Union Pacific has perhaps the most vital big steam excursion program in the nation, a 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy," a 4-6-6-4 Challenger, and Northern type #844, the latter never retired, always in frontline, back up or fan trip service since built in 1944. Yet the Union Pacific just floated a whopping $600 million in green bonds to fund investments aimed at reducing carbon footprint.

If the UP can do that while preserving and operating those three glorious babes, what are we prepared to do to ensure a future for our wheeled alter egos?

Dunno 'bout you, but use DOT 5 brake fluid, reverse osmosis water, and fuel injection hose instead of the regular type in my '47 2103 because i intend to drive it awhile, Gaia, Great Spirit, God, Zeus, Minerva, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea willing.

Good catch, Icarus. According to the New Yorker, London Daily Mail and others, 16 of the world's biggest ships produce more pollution, sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides (the causes also of acid rain) than all the world's cars, and one airline flight from O'Hare to SFO negates an entire year of living in a tiny, energy-efficient home and driving a Prius.

According to UN and other vetted international studies, animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined.

But on a planet of 8 billion people all burning some kind of carbon, 350 million of them in the US (recent census underreported by 18-20 million according to the NY Times, Wash Post and others), internal combustion cars are a convenient whipping boy with people lacking the discipline, focus, knowledge to examine their own actions. Until we buck the consumer-driven media's blackout on overpopulation, encourage people to "have one or none," adopt if more wanted, embrace the win-win-win of a plant based vegan diet, i.c. cars remain the sacrificial anode.

Those who consider this "politics" and are happy living in a cylinder, playing us/them, quibbling, parsing, do not be surprised when the bell tolls for your Packard; collector cars already under the gun in Europe, Scandinavia, Britain.

Don't expect salvation from companies whose business model so weak it depends on evermore consumers and cheap labor. Every nation on earth with declining birthrate enjoys higher per capita GNP.

Am sure some here gathered live in the hinterlands so as long as they've got some lightly traveled roads nearby, don't fathom the fuss.

Our Packards were designed and built when our population a third, even a quarter today's.

In the '30s, five of the Supreme Court justices owned Packards, which were overwhelmingly the choice of the world's embassies, Packard advertising not just in Fortune, but the National Geographic, the New Yorker, and Literary Digest.

Perhaps those here gathered might focus accordingly.

So, any lamenting "wordy, fancy, and long winded" as one did my quotes from oil company chemical engineers re: zinc dialkyldithiophosphate, look at the big picture, future for our hobby, either we triage, focus on the overarching causes, or continue whining about symptoms, blaming "thuh guvment."

Some still think there's advantage in using motor oil formulated for Diesels in their Packards. While not a grievous mistake, the same old car owning oil company chemical engineers agree we are better served by one formulated for spark ignition gasoline engines.

Hilarious when guys not knowing the difference between silicon and silicone weigh in with opines about DOT-5 brake fluid, or think Optimas are "gel" batteries.

Many of us autoholics have a Packard because we wanted something a cut above, understated, with engineering refinement. May that extend beyond the garage.

30 seconds of Googling would've shown you the Optima 6-volt Red Top 8.13 inches high, 10.06" long, 3.63" wide.

Good idea to support companies that help our old cars so they can sell enough product to keep their prices low, since many rising due to supply chain issues, demand, inflation as it is.

Meanwhile, perhaps it's time for a note on PI's homepage to the effect of "Have a question? It's probably been answered. Enter yours first in our Search box in the upper right corner."

Some of the questions posted are so basic, generic, we wonder if the posers have any experience with any old internal combustion engine.

Of course, many knowledgeable gents here ready to help newbies and longtimers alike. But, "they help those who help themselves."

If people that lazy, how on earth are they to rejuvenate a well-wrought, refined old automobile?

Re: by-pass vs. full flow oil filters, addreessed that on these forums a couple years ago:

Most Packards, if they have an oil filter, have a bypass, other than 1934-39 senior eights and 1935-39 Twelve, a rarity shared with the 1933-on Pierce-Arrows, which introduced hydraulic valve lifters, and 1931-33 Auburn Twelve, the latter surely the best buy in automotive history. So the below may be of interest.

Expanding on the above discussion of bypass vs. full flow filtration, here's an interesting letter in the 2006, No.5 Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Newsletter by Al Light, Williamsport, PA, which is, coincidentally, where Lycoming, builder of all A-C-D engines, is still based:

"I really enjoyed the editor's comments on the club website about the real value of having an oil filter.

In the early 1950s while at Ford Engineering I was fortunate to hear an argument of "Full Flow" vs. "Partial Flow" oil filtration. The pro "Full Flow" people seemed to be more interested in the positive sales pitch that this system provided while the "Partial Flow" people seemed to
have a more solid engineering approach. The chief engineer from Fram Corporation stated the big difference was the allowable filter pressure drop. The larger the pressure drop, the finer and more material will be caught. With the full flow system you are restricted to approximately 10 pounds per inch drop across the element, and also require a bypass valve that will open when this pressure drop is exceeded. This of course is to protect the engine from oil starvation in the event of a plugged filter. With the partial flow, or sometimes called bypass system, the pressure drop is full engine oil pressure since
the oil discharges from the filter directly into the oil pan and not under any pressure. The system is automatically
bypassed if the filter plugs. It was also noted that a denser filter element is used on the partial flow system.

The Fram engineer summed up his thought by stating the answer to the argument was obtained by considering the following question: "Is it better to filter all of the dirt from part of the oil or to filter part of the dirt from all of the oil?"

He also stated that with the full flow system the bypass valve may open under cold starts and sometimes opens at high engine RPM when the allowable pressure drop may be exceeded. This results in no filtration under these conditions. His other comment was that the biggest advantage to full flow was to catch the machining chips, etc. in new engines. Fram's final approach was to propose the use of a combination system that did both full and partial filtering. I'm sure that this would have increased their filter business. I am not aware of any such system ever being used."


I can only add my auld aircraft/auto mechanic/machinist/pilot, blown '37 Cord, Auburn 12, Marmon 16-owning friend said they were taught in tech school that a bypass filter will eventually filter all your engine's oil after a drive of 50 or so miles.

Another friend with '59 and '63 Ferraris showed me they left Modena with both full and bypass filters, as do some more recent trucks and heavy equipment, some of the latter coming only with bypass filtration.
Such equipment is likely to run hour after hour, shift after shift, so all the oil would easily be filtered.

As we've observed, for all the technological breakthroughs since Packard folded, much engineering is cost engineering,
but don't know if this is the case regarding bypass vs. full flow oil filtration.

It's easier to instill concern than quell it.

The Kendall engineer with the extreme high output 350 in his '67 Camaro with vastly higher valve spring pressure than our lazy flatheads, uses the same off the shelf GT1 10W/30 i use, which has the same ZDDP level as Quaker State/Pennzoil (both owned by Shell), and all other major brands, which is to say the same level as in the 1970s, when we never heard any of this fear mongering.

ZDDP above 1,200 ppm can increase corrosion, not a problem with most name brand quality motor oils, which are all around 800 ppm:

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Dear Icarus! Thou art soaring too close to the incessant glare of the bolshoi. Heed JW, Tim Cole, Fish'n'Jim. Let the facts in attendance always be seated before hearsay.

We'd thought the ZDDP business long since vanquished by stake through heart.

The below is from a post made several years ago after discussion with major oil company techs, themselves owning various flat cam engines, one relating that he'd also owned a '41 Packard.

But first, everything from Packard's publications through MoToR's Auto Repair Manuals of the '30s, '40s, '50s lists 20W winter, 30 summer for Packards, and for nearly all other cars.

20W/50 is better suited for a worn out engine flogged in Arizona. Its thickness prevents it reaching all the critical metal-to-metal wear spots on cold start up.

Herewith, sir:

ZDDP/zinc is a another red herring. Today's zinc levels were "lowered" back to where they were in the '70s and before, after too much zinc hindered catalytic convertors. And we didn't hear all this zinc hysteria back then. You can trace it to a couple curmudgeons in the CCCA with flathead Cad 346-ci V-8s which use, unlike Packard's hardened steel, a chintzy bronze timing gear. They had trouble after rebuilds, so of course, it's the motor oil. Some Joe Sixpaks w/ the usual backyard hot-rodded SBC 350s had problems after their rebuilds, and also blamed the motor oil. The internet can be akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater or Fox "News."

Let's try some vetted journalism, engineering savvy.
"Just the facts, ma'am."

A Kendall/Conoco-Phillips engineer, himself with a highly-tweaked '67 Camaro with -- like many of our Packard engines (the big '30s seniors had the quality of a roller cam, but then even Packard/R-R Merlins have flat cams)-- a flat cam engine with m u c h higher valve spring pressures, explained that a friend of his was the one who produced the Indiana Region of the CCCA's 15W/40 "Classic Car Motor Oil," (advertised in Hemmings, etc.) and that even Kendall started marketing some oil with higher zinc because, he laughed,

"If you want to stay in business, you either give people what they want or think they need."

This petroleum engineer and gearhead himself uses the same off-the-shelf Kendall GT1 10W-30 i use in my '47 Super Clipper's inline eight lawnmower engine. I use Kendall because i came of age on the East Coast, liked the smell and old color (since abandoned), akin to Packard engine green, being a sucker for marketing, but an exhaustive Consumer Reports feature compared various major brand motor oils of the same weight used 60,000 miles in a fleet of NYC cabs and found little or no discernible difference among any of them.

ZDDP additives only settle at the bottom of your sump. And too much zinc unleashes other woes:https://aaoil.co.uk/123579-2/

Much ado about naught. The cheapest off-brand motor oil available today streets ahead of the best from the '60s, let alone the '40s. By extension, a Chevron or ExxonMobil petroleum engineer explained to a lifelong auto/aero machinist/mechanic pilot supercharged '37 Cord Phaeton, Auburn 12/Marmon 16-owning friend that the black molybdenum/graphite chassis grease, whether those brands or Sta-Lube, a factor of eight times better than the orange fiber grease around when our cars new into the '70s. And that exchange was in the late 1970s/1980.

Finally, and pardon the verbiage but not being retired as many here gathered, when i do post include what i can, thrice annual oil changes, certainly at 2,000 miles, are excessive and pointless, given the superiority of modern detergent motor oils, providing the owner not make the common mistake of firing up his car in the garage to show it off for a few minutes to visitors, then letting it sit for weeks or months.

Never start an engine lest you intend to drive it at least 18 or so miles highway to equalize temperature of block, manifold, head, stave off the formation of sludge, varnish, carbonic acid. A local fire dept. used to fast idle their trucks for 15-20 minutes then shut them off, only to discover they were only wearing their rings.

An old mechanic's test was to place your hand on the bottom of your oil pan. If too hot to keep there more than a split second, you got your oil hot enough.

I like a stone simple device provided by www.MasterLube.net, which captures your engine's peak oil pressure in an aluminum cylinder, which you can release via hidden toggle to pressurize your engine before starting, when according to McDonnell Douglas, Continental, and the SAE, 80-90% of all engine wear occurs.
Tell Kerry McCracken a '47 Super Clipper in Walnut Creek,CA and a quartet of '50s Ferraris near me referred you.