I went through the leaking seal replacement last year on the Panama. I documented start to finish beginning here. It's not too bad, though measuring the axle play is a bit of a chore. It gave me the opportunity to redo all the rear brakes as well. I picked up my seals from a place that is no longer in business, so it'd be best to go through Kanter or similar. Dwight has some for the '55 and up, but none yet for the '54 and under.

If the bearings look good, you can clean out the old grease and pack new grease in using the palm of your hand (this is what the service manual recommends). Otherwise you will need to press off the old bearing and press on the new.

-Kevin

Welcome! My dad has a '38 Super 8 1605 that has been restored. The interior was reupholstered, but not to stock. However, all the info you are looking for should be accurate on the car. The car is about 2 hours away from me and I typically am there at least once a month. Next time I'm down I can get whatever pictures and measurements you want.

-Kevin

Went for a nice Sunday drive after church with the whole family. The bench seats make it easy to fit all 7 of us in there. Not ideal with the seatbelts, but we're also just cruising at about 25 mph around town and into the country. Kids had a great time, lots of heads turning as usual.

I leaned over to my wife during the drive and said "I love this. This is why we have this car". Making memories as a family in the Packard....the money and time involved are all worth it.

-Kevin

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Thanks Howard. It's been so long since I rebuilt the headlight switch that I couldn't remember where all the wires were. And I had to switch computers since then, and my old one had all the schematics and pictures. Thanks for providing the picture again.

I finished swapping out the heater cables for new ones (the wire is very hard to bend). I reinstalled the radio as well. I pulled the instrument panel so I could get a good view of the wires connected to the headlight switch. Everything was connected. I checked to be sure they were tight, which they were. I checked all the other connections and didn't see anything amiss. After all this the headlights and high beams worked fine. No idea what happened.

Front turn signals still don't work....I'll have to look at it further. But I got the headlights working, which was needed for tonight.

Did a quick cruise up and down the main part of downtown for a while. Met up with a few other cars doing the same. Nice guys. Then my wife and I got some dinner and went to a free concert in the park. I was expecting to get more air coming out of the heater. It was barely anything, even with the fan running. I'll do some troubleshooting on that later.

-Kevin

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I'm going to put pause on trying to get the radio up and running. I don't have a working power antenna (broken off), and the radio is AM-only anyways. Using my bluetooth speaker for music is working great. Maybe I'll pull it back out later and tinker with it for fun. But right now there are more important things to do.

I've replaced the non-working Bowden cables with new ones from Aircraft Spruce. They are slightly larger diameter but still work fine. They are definitely stiff, making reinstallation of the heater controls difficult.

I'm going to put the radio back in, but will leave the fuse out. It won't be used anyways.

Here's where I need help. After I removed the radio I realized that the headlights no longer work, and the turn signals in the front no longer work. I can get the parking lights to turn on and off though. I had previously rebuilt the headlight switch and everything was working perfectly. What happened? Where should I look first? I'm trying to get the lights working again before a cruise-in tonight....the last of the year.

-Kevin

The '51 is pretty rough, but I'd buy it just for the bumpers. Those are in way better shape than mine.

-Kevin

Love the car, and it's not in bad shape either. Videos of your progress on the car would always be welcome.

A couple of notes from the last few posts:
1.) Seat cleaning. I took my seats out and dropped them off at a detailer's place (car wasn't running at the time). He was able to steam them and get much of the stain out, but be prepared for underlying stain (in the padding) to get lifted out and into the seat fabric as well. One part of my rear seat had some stain get into the seat from water leaks, and the steam cleaning lifted some of that stain out of the underlying padding and into the fabric. Overall it looked much better, but I'll still need to reupholster everything anyways.

2.) Consider having the seats ozone bombed as well. Mine stunk of mice and filth. If you leave the seats in the car and take the car to the detailer (or find a mobile detailer) they can just put the ozone machine in the cabin and bomb everything at once. It made a massive difference in the smell of my car.

3.) If you are going to replace the carpet, consider putting down some Dynamat (or similar) first. It's a bit of a chore, but it does help cut down on road noise.

4.) With the pitted trim, I don't think that any sort of paint is going to look good at all. I've experimented with a bit of chrome paints and haven't been impressed. I am casually looking at some products that Caswell sells, from either actual chrome plating to something similar and non-toxic. I have a bunch of small parts that I'd like to replate, but I'm not sure I want to go through all that work. Regardless, your trim pieces will look much better with some good polishing, waxing, and leaving them as is. Paint will never shine like chrome will. Even pitted chrome looks better than paint.

Again, really nice car. I appreciate the updates. Keep up the good work!

-Kevin

For some reason I was thinking that the voltage was converted to 12V for the radio. Not sure what I was thinking there. Thanks for clarifying!

Quote:

Does the radio operate off 6V or is it stepped up to 12V?

The estimated price means nothing on Copart. What matters is if the vehicle has a reserve or not, which we can't see on that particular vehicle.

If no reserve, then the car will likely sell for very cheap.