Glad it came off OK.
I do not know which came first the front mounted or side mounted pumps but I agree that the front mounted is a very poor design caused by having to fit the pump into too little space. Adjusting the gland nut is awkward at best and normal gland leakage drips onto the vibration damper rusting the internals and locking it up.
My cars now have modern sealed bearings and modern ceramic faced seals which are now working fine with zero leakage.

The vibration damper bolts to the face of the fan pulley and is located centrally by a spigot that penetrates the VD by only about 3/16". Remove the hand crank nut then the 4 bolts and it should come off reasonably easily. Be careful not to lever off the fan pully flange where the belt runs as it is likely to be very thin and easy to break.
Incidentally my 2 1929 Standard Eights have front mounted water pumps and have front mounted vibration dampers, in my opinion the drawing in the book is wrong, I have never seen one with the VD behind the fan pulley.
David Australia

Mal,
I have been driving way across Sydney for at least 30 years to get my electroplating done. I have no complaints with that company however now I learn of an electroplater literally "just down the road" from home, and he looks good!
Very interesting but after restoring 3 basket case Packards plus a few other distractions I am cured and won't need any more plating! If I keep saying it it might just work.
David

Jim, I have had a 1929 Packard on the road for about 6 years now and a 1922 for over 20 years. Both cars vaporise badly in hot weather especially on a long climb or in heavy stop start traffic. I have tried adding diesel but found adding kerosene works much better. I have added up to 20% on a very hot day and found no change in performance in fact I suspect it would run fine on 100% once the engine is hot. The other modification that I believe is essential is a heat shield under and around the vac tank. I have also insulated the exhaust. However despite all of this the car will still vaporise under the conditions you describe if the day is very hot say 100 deg +.
The final solution that I am yet to try is to fit an electric fuel pump that feeds directly into the carburetor. Feeding it into the vac tank is futile because that is where most of the heating of the fuel takes place. I have spoken to other Packard owners who report that this completely eliminates the problem.
As a matter of interest I have discussed this with a representative of a major fuel company. The reason why the problem is worse now that when the cars were new is that modern fuel has a much lower boiling point today. It is fine in a modern car with a high pressure fuel injection system as increasing the supply pressure dramatically reduces the boiling point. When it first happened on my 1922 on its first run many years ago I thought it was fuel blockage so after checking the main jet in the carby I then removed the top of the vac tank and even though the car had been stopped for some time the fuel was still bubbling away in the tank due to the heat from the exhaust manifold. I had some heavy gasket material with me which I crudely wired under the vac tank to shield it from exhaust heat and was able to drive on without further problems, (it was only a mild day).
David - Australia

Ray, I am glad you received the sketches. I have replaced all of the wood in 3 1920 cars, (1922 Sport, 1929 Roadster and 1929 Sedan) I have only basic woodworking skills, it takes a long time and can be very frustrating when there are problems like getting the doors to fit properly. The following are a few thoughts that might help.

If there is rust in the body this will need to fixed first. Typically the lower edges of doors, scuttle and tub rust away. This must be cut back to sound metal and new metal shaped welded in to return the metal to its original shape.
The first step with the wood is to make the 2 main pieces that run along each side of the base. From memory you need 1 ?" thick timber about 8-9" wide the full length of the car body , hopefully there is enough old wood to give you the correct thickness. You will need fully seasoned good quality timber, not the timber you would get at an ordinary timber yard (at least not here in Australia, I guess its similar in US) The shape of these bottom pieces is obviously critical. Hopefully the old rotten wood will still be able to give you a profile. If not you will need to get the shape from the metal work. Once you have those 2 bottom runners cut and in place with the cross pieces in place you have a base to start working on the upright members. Try to gain the correct shape from the old timber where ever possible.
I used a marine 2 part glue for all joints (along with screws) the glue needs to have a gel consistency so that it is gap filling, especially necessary if the joints are not perfect. Getting perfectly fitting joints is difficult, joints are generally not square to each other. You will need a woodcutting band saw. I also used a wood rasp extensively for getting the various pieces to fit up to the shape of the metal. Other tools you will need are wood chisels, planes etc
When fitting the individual pieces to the metal I sometimes rubbed grease onto the inside face of the metal then when you offer the new piece the grease will mark the points of contact which can then be shaved down. This is a slow process before the piece fits to the metal shape well.

It's a big job I was working when I did mine (retired now) and so I only worked on it weekends when time permitted and it took a couple of years per car. Getting doors to fit well is especially time consuming.

I wish there were clear guidelines but it more a case of figuring out a way top make each piece.

The structural wood around the windows in the doors (not the interior decorative trim) is particularly difficult to fit and I found it necessary to cut the metal in order to get the new wood in place. The metal then had to be re-welded using a heat shield to protect the wood.

I hope others can add some further tips. Good luck with it.

Ray,

I have some information that may help with the renewal of the woodwork in your 526. If you let me have your e-mail address I will scan it and send it to you.

David.
Sydney Australia

Mal,
I had the same thought as BigKev, if it was mine I would strip it and start again however I would fill the holes with soft solder. I have had good results with this method of filling unwanted holes up to about 3/16" diameter. I always lightly counter sink each side of the holes to key the solder and have never had a failure. The roof of my 1929 sedan had hundreds of holes where a non standard steel top had been screwed in place and I used this method. The benefit is that there is no distortion and I have never had a failure.
If you did this and sanded all the filling back to a smooth finish I would think you would get a much better result.
David

Mal,
I am not sure what interest a 1912 2 cylinder Maxwell has to the Packard owning forum readers however there is a tenuous connection in that the flywheel found its way to "Wades shed" and you started it so I guess that allows for a response. Your description of the hinged con. rod is perfect and I would like to post a picture to show this primitive design but VB has gone to the UK for 3 weeks and taken the camera with her. I bought this car from US "fully restored" and have just completed a total rebuild on the "fully restored" engine (sounds familiar I am sure). The cylinders were so corroded they had to be sleeved and the new babbit metalled con rods had only about 50% contact, the rest was undersize. As for hot rodding (or is it rat rodding, whatever that means?) I had to buy new pistons and aluminum is the only way to go, there are no balance weights on the crank shaft so the lighter the better and incidentally after trying in vain to get a price from Egge, friends in US suggested I try Arias who responded immediately with a price that proved to be cheaper than Egge when they eventually responded, they are beautifully made and I highly recommend them. During discussion on a Maxwell chat line it was suggested that the antiquated conrods be replaced with ones from an A model Ford which are dimensionally identical. The result is that the old (4 1/2" dia) pistons and conrods weigh 3.7 kgs each (that's about 8 lbs for our US friends who are still to get their act together), the news ones weigh almost exactly half that. As for the compression ratio I just re-checked the figures and the information I gave you was incorrect, the original CR is 3.1 : 1 and with the new domed pistons this increases to 4.0 : 1 which might reduce the time for 0 to 30 mph from 10 minutes to maybe 8 minutes. Seriously it is all in the interest of smoother running and reduced engine load.
I do have Packards (1920's)and unlike other more sensible owners who have advanced to the later, easier to drive models, I like the older ones and as I couldn't afford an early Packard model 48 or twin six I opted for the brass era 2 cyl. Maxwell.
That,I am sure the readers will agree, is more than enough on Maxwells so back to things Packard.

Mal, Rust on new chrome is bad , looks like they skipped the copper coat. If you are looking for an electroplater, I have had very good results from Astor Plating at Villawood, for many years. (hope they didn't do yours!)
David

My experience with vapor lock is confined to the Packards of the 1920's where it is a serious problem here in Australia in hot weather and long climbs. I have been told by a fuel company engineer that the problem in our old cars will be much worse today than many years ago. The reason is that modern fuels have a lower boiling point to suit the modern high pressure fuel injection systems. The high pressure raises the boiling point well above the engine bay operating temperatures so that it should not be a problem in fuel injected cars.
I live with this problem by adding up to 10% kerosene to the fuel in summer, as recommended by the fuel company, I have tried diesel but it was not very effective. An electric fuel pump bypassing the vacuum tank (pre-fuel pump) would be a better solution.
My 1922 Packard has the original "Packard Fuelizer" carburetor which incorporates a small combustion chamber to heat the fuel, presumably to aid vaporization in cold weather. A small amount of fuel is bled into the combustion chamber on the carburetor where it is ignited by a glow plug operating from a separate coil. The mixture is adjustable and the hand book describes the procedure and correct flame temperature. Obviously this is not used today.