The wayward pin has been found. Turns out that it wasn't lost after all, just reassigned to a different department. Now I need to check the parts book and see what's supposed to be on the throttle linkage. The carb was removed when I got the car, so whatever was there could be in the can of engine hardware that was in the trunk.

Jeff

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I'm going to have to download that fact book. I suspect it has some good stuff in it. My original fuel line had a curve on it before going into the carb, but I decided to add the fuel filter and eliminate the curve. I have to say that many of the original metal lines were crudely bent, almost if they were done quickly by hand as the cars were going down the assembly line. Only the power accessory hydraulic lines and oil lines were neatly done. It's not often that I'm able to do a nicer job bending lines than the factory did, but this car is at least twenty years older than what I'm usually working on. Also, I'm probably being more careful on this car than on others that I have done.

Jeff

Thanks for the compliments and the suggestions. I will definitely check into the book. I had noticed the fuel pump discrepancy a while back when I was looking through the parts book. I was planning on posting a query about it, but came to the conclusion that Packard changed the fuel line routing somewhere along the way, or possibly the 356 was different from the smaller engines. For the setup that you posted the picture for, I think the fuel line on the frame terminates to the rear of the right side upper control arm. My fuel line terminates in front of the control arm. If I rotated the pump housing 180 degrees, the short rubber fuel line wouldn't reach. Maybe some other 22/23 owners will chime in on the subject to clear up the mystery?


Jeff

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Tuesday turned out to be a pretty big day. The engine finally made it's way back into the Packard. Way behind schedule, but it still feels good. Luckily, getting approval to attend orientation for my new job has been a real slow process, giving me enough time to get things done before I have to leave for Little Rock, Arkansas.

It's been a while since I last did any work on the engine in the project blog. Manifold installation was straightforward, but would have been easier with a helper. I rebuilt the Carter WD-O carburetor and found that the fast idle linkage was missing. It had been converted to a manual choke, and the perpetrator of the crime chucked the linkage. Later on I was able to find a complete WD-O on ebay that I could steal the linkage from.

Rebuilding the fuel pump turned out to be more challenging than expected. I didn't take much in notes back when I took it apart, since the rebuild kits that I saw advertised came with instructions. I decided to buy my kit from Max Merritt when I purchased some other items, and guess what? No instructions included. I was really surprised that I could find almost no info on the internet about rebuilding these things. I finally found a copy of an old Motor manual with a good picture and some basic instructions.

I had planned to purchase a new fuel pump heat shield from Max Merritt, but they didn't have any in stock, and the employee who made them was on vacation at the time I called in my order. I had bought a used one for the 288/327 engine, but it was a bit too short for the 356. I decided to make one from scratch, and it turned out to be fairly easy to do.

The distributor was reassembled and got a Petronix electronic ignition kit installed because the breaker point cam had significant wear on the lobes. The distributor is a Delco unit, but the service manual says it should be an Autolite, so it may have been replaced in the past.

....I had to bend up a whole bunch more metal lines for oil, fuel, and vacuum..........Did I mention that I hate bending and flaring lines?

As I was installing items on the front of the engine, I found that the generator has the wrong pulley on it. It's for a ?" wide belt instead of the 1" belt. I've been looking all over, but can't find the correct pulley anywhere.

The Electromatic Clutch control unit went on next. The knucklehead that took the head off of the engine bent the linkage real bad, and it broke right at a cotter pin hole. Luckily, I was able to braze it back together. The unit will not be functional because it needs a new diaphragm in the big vacuum chamber, and that wasn't one of the priorities. I did notice that my linkage seems to differ a bit from what's in the parts book. The book shows an extra bracket off of the intake manifold for the throttle return spring. I don't have the bracket, and I don't think the spring would be at the right angle if I did have it. I put the return spring down on the linkage near the gas pedal.

The last item to be installed on the engine was a new set of plug wires that I bought from Kanter. They are the shiny, lacquered wires with rubber boots on both ends. At first I wasn't impressed with them, but they turned out to be pretty nice. You have to fine tune them to length, but that means that you actually have wires that are the correct length when you are done, unlike most pre-assembled wire sets, in which the shortest wire is always too long and the longest wire is always too short. I'll find out soon if the wires will work with the Petronix ignition. It'll be a real shame if they don't.

I've discovered one major issue with my nice new engine stand: the wide stance of the legs makes it impossible for me to get my engine hoist in position to lift an engine off of it. I have to pick off the engine with the forklift, set it down on the ground, then hook up the hoist. Once the engine was sitting on some wood blocks, I installed the oil galley and cam plugs, then the bellhousing and starter. I decided to leave the flywheel and clutch for after it was in the car, which I think turned out to be the right way to go.

Lifting heavy engines makes me nervous. My hoist is US made, but as usual, the ram is from China. I've never had a ram fail, but I've had a bunch of the pumps go out over the years, which can make an engine drop pretty fast but not free-fall. I would have liked to take a photo with the engine sky high on the hoist to clear the top of the grill, but my nerves said "no, get that thing down to a lower altitude as quick as possible". The leveler really worked nice on this motor. You need to tilt it down at a fairly steep angle to get it in place, and then you can bring the back end up a bit, and the leveler lets you do that with ease.

Once the front mount was touching the frame, I loosely installed the two bolts, and then I ran a chain across the rear to hold up the back of the engine. I'll leave the front bolts loose for now because I'll have to drop the back of the engine way down to get the trans in.



November 5, 2013. Engine finally back in the car.....

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Thanks Howard,

The town I live in actually still has an old-time hardware store. I'll have to see if they have something close that will work.

Jeff

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It appears that I lost whatever the release bearing spring attaches to. It must have fallen out while I was cleaning the bellhousing, as I can see that it wasn't on my "cart of hardware".

What did the spring attach to? Was it just a pin with a hole, similar to the one in my picture? (which is out of my hardware collection, and too big to fit through the hole in the bellhousing)

Thanks, Jeff

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That's just what I needed.



Jeff

Hi All, I'm in need of a good verbal description or photo of the correct heater hose routing for a 22nd series. I thought I had it figured out for sure, then I put the engine in. Now I see a couple ways it could go.

Thanks, Jeff

I took the transmission apart a couple months ago. I had planned to put it right back together, as I had a gasket kit and new seals ready to go. I found that the input shaft front bearing and rear transmission bearing were a bit on the rough side and should be replaced. According to the service manual, my overdrive balk ring wasn't up to spec either. The trans would have to wait till I gathered up the required parts before it would go back together.

The Packard three speed transmission is fairly easy to work on, and doesn't require much in special tools to take it apart and put it back together. The service manual shows a dummy shaft tool used for holding the needle bearings and thrust washers for the cluster gear in place during installation. The Cluster shaft diameter is .885", which just happens to be exactly the same as a piece of ?" copper pipe. There are other manual trans's out there that you don't need to use the dummy shaft, buts it's a necessity on this one because you need to push the cluster shaft to the bottom of the case in order to install the input and output shafts. Then you pry the cluster up into place and install the cluster shaft. (Or as I did, turn the trans upside down, and pry the cluster down). The manual is short on pictures and the parts book picture is lousy, so I would recommend taking very good notes when taking things apart.

Though the trans is easy, the overdrive presents a challenge. There is one snap ring that's a real bugger to get out. Access to the ring is hindered by an oil slinger, and it's really tough to open the ring enough to get it off the shaft.

Another "special tool" that helped out was a plastic sleeve that came on a spark plug that I bought some time in the past. It was part of the packaging to protect the tip of the plug from damage. Probably a Bosch or Japanese brand. I cut the sleeve lengthwise, and it really helped to install the shifter shaft seals and the felt seal for the overdrive lockout lever.

The service manual and one of the service bulletins states that the drag on the balk ring should be around 5 pounds. I measured mine, and was between 1 and 2, so I bought a brand new ring from Max Merritt. The new ring is about the same as the old, so I'm going to have to say that the 5 pound specification is incorrect.

I took both the overdrive solenoid and overdrive governor apart. The solenoid has a bunch of contacts in it that were all in need of cleaning. The governor had high resistance between one of the contacts and the metal that it attached to, so I had to solder the contact to the metal piece.

I now know that the trans should be painted engine color, but I painted it before I found that out. I painted it based on what I found on it while cleaning it. As far as I could tell, there was black paint on the case before the carb cleaner removed it, and the overdrive unit was obviously an orange-red color.


September to November 2013. Refurbish transmission and overdrive

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I'm starting to think that the interference issue is probably a myth. Considering the fact that the Petronix module is mounted inside the distributor, about an inch from where electricity is jumping from the rotor tip to the cap contacts, it's going to see plenty of electrical noise no matter what plugs and wires you have. As soon as I get a chance, I'll take a look at their website to see if it mentions any restrictions for installing the conversion kits.

Jeff