Drake: Although you hijacked my wiring harness thread to ask about tune-up parts (not nice), I will nevertheless pass on what I believe are NAPA part numbers that work on my 1952 Packard with 288 engine and Delco (not Autolite) electrical components:

Sparkplugs: Champion J8 - 14mm .028" gap (NAPA pn 841)
Points: NAPA pn CS777A
Condenser: NAPA pn RR174
Distributor cap: NAPA pn A1Q (the distributor is Delco pn 1110825)
Rotor: NAPA pn RR99
Coil: NAPA pn IC7
Sparkplug wires: 1960s-70s, 389 Pontiac wires

Jim G

TW: I just sent en email to Rhode Island Wire, but I am concerned that their price may be more than I can handle, as a preliminary look at their website price modules seems to indicate that a COMPLETE harness for my 52 Packard 200 Deluxe would cost order of magnitude $1000!

Unless I am misunderstanding their website content. . .

Jim G

Ok, my Packard has manual brakes, and I'm hearing from all the above that there may be two different setups: one with the master cylinder accessible from under the hood, and the other with it accessible via an inspection cover under the carpet.

I will check mine later today to see which it is, but I hope it's the underhood location, because my floor carpet appears to be fastened (glued?) down alongside the driver door! :)

Jim G

Packard V8: I'm thinking he means that you want a Ford balancer with NO weights on it to balance the crankshaft, as the crankshaft on the Packard is internally balanced, so balancing weights on the harmonic balancer would UNbalance the engine.

Jim G

I have looked in both the owner's manual and service manual for my '52 Packard 200 Deluxe, and cannot find any description of how you gain access to the master cylinder to check the brake fluid level.

Do you literally have to put the car on a hoist, or can you get to the inspection / fill cap on the master cylinder from the interior carpet area. I see no remote reservioir under the hood.

Jim G

Thank-you TurboPackman!

I am forwarding this link to my ace mechanic friend, Randy, for him to study. He and I will be working on this together!

Jim G

BigKev: If I can get the necessary basic info and photos, I'd bve happy to do a "how-to article", as I really MUST add AC to my car very soon.

I am already a writer - I have written dozens of technical website aticles over at www.ssrfanatics.com for owners of Chevy SSRs in the course of doing a 3 year project in which I took a stock 2004 SSR from 300 hp to 575 supercharged hp. At website members' requests, I eventually wrote a 320 page e-book called "The SSR Experience" which has sold well for a couple of years so far.

I have a '55 1st Edition (NOT 2nd Edition) Chevy pickup truck project that involves a 450 hp cammed Cadillac LQ9 LS series engine, fiberglass mono leafsprings, Flaming River steering box, etc, that I am suffering some supplier delays on, so I am focusing for a while on my '52 Packard. The Packard is my ONLY running vehilce right now, so is truly my daily driver.

Jim G

Someone who sounds knowledgeable has told me that the easiest way to get engine power to drive an AC compressor so I can add AC to my '52 Packard 200 Deluxe, is to use a Packard power steering pulley and bracket. Since my Packard is manual steering, and I intend to leave it that way, this sounds interesting and potentially far easier and less costly than engineering a bracket and pulley for the compressor from scratch.

However, I can't find a photo of a Pakcard power steering bracket and pulley in place on a 51 to 54 Packard, so I can't picture how it would be done.

Can someone out there with a 51 to 54 Packard post a photo of the power steering pulley and bracket, mounted in place on the inline eight engine?

Jim G

I installed the new sender this monring. My pro mechanic friend, Randy, told me that the white sealing tape IS a good idea, but that I should leave the first couple of threads of the sender that go into the car clear of the tape. He said this would keep the tape from getting into the bore of the oil passage, and would enable a satisfactory ground.

I tightened the sender only modestly (Randy warned me not to overtorque it and destroy the threads).

I installed a ring terminal on the wire from the chassis, and screwed it onto the sender terminal.

I turned on the ignition key, and the "low oil pressure" light did come ON! I started the engine, and the light did go out. Five minutes of idle, at first fast idle and then off the choke slow idle, brought no leaks from the sender (checked all around it with a dry paper towel), and absolutely NO oil pressure light flickering on even at slow idle. Looks like the sender now works properly AND my oil pressure is good even at idle.

Jim G

You have to be careful with data like this; owners generally report the best mileage they ever achieve. Often, that is on the downhill trips (elevation 1000 to elevation 400) or with 20 mph tailwinds (Packards with their refrigerator aerodynamics are VERY sensitive to headwinds or tialwinds). Also, in the days when our Packards were new, the average highway speed was about 45 mph, not the speeds we drive today.

The book "Packard Gold Portfolio 1946-1958" from Brooklands Books, is a compilation of road tests and magazine descriptiosn from that actual era. It is very informative about what gas mileage was REAL for these cars. Some of the tests simply noted average mileage for the road test, while others actually used equipment to find the MPG at 30, 40, 50, and 60 mph. The results are interesting.

The BEST actual INSTRUMENTED mpg I found in there for Ultramatic-equipped cars at a CONSTANT 60 mph was about 15.5 mpg. The best instrumented mpg at 30 mph was just under 20. The AVERAGE MPG for Ulytramatic equipped cars was mmore like 12 to 13 (no kidding). Even the 3speed plus OD cars, while not showing an INSTRUMENTED tests, nevertheless showed average MPG of 12 to 13 where mpg was quoted at all.

Added edit: At CONSTANT speed, the Ultramatics would NOT have inferior mileage to that of the 3-speeds, since the Ultramatics bypass the converter and lock up at cruising speed. The 3-speed with overdrive would get slightly better mileage than the Ultramtics or 3-speeds without OD, due to the 30% gearing difference with OD engaged. But, that difference in mileage would be order of magnitude 5 to 8% (I have run similar tests on more modern vehicles using gearing differences of up to 22%, and gotten only 5% worse mileage at 60 mph with 22% stiffer (numerically lower) gearing).

Jim G