Good advice from all, and imagine being in Germany, you require antifreeze. But never use distilled water, which is ion hungry, leaching minerals; lead, tin, solder among them, from your cooling system. Mercedes issued an adviso about this back in 1989.

Reverse osmosis water the way to go. See the tech link on www.no-rosion.com

If you want to split micro hairs, Red Line Water Wetter incrementally better for systems with aluminum, No-Rosion for all iron systems.

That's the thing, weight adds up. 30 lbs. here, 30 lbs. there, pretty soon you're up to 100 lbs. jettisoned. Then 200 lbs. Losing weight an art, same as increasing torque/hp. Less is more.

Crying shame what was left of Packard in the '50s could do no better than glomming 200 lbs. more "sporty" cues on an otherwise stock convertible, the "Caribbean" aping dreck like the Olds Fiesta, Buick Skylark, Cadillac Eldorado instead of meeting or exceeding the Bentley Continental, considering Packard's earlier '34 Model 1106 LeBaron sport coupe.

Optimas have indeed gotten expensive, but again, a minimum of a decade vs. likely less, tho' obviously, some traditional batteries can go seven, eight, even on rare occasion, ten years.

A 6-volt Optima Red Top's 800 cold cranking amps enough to spin my 356's gear reduction starter, handily start a Cad V-16. My Cord friends like them because low voltage means no shift.

Am not affiliated with Optima or any other product mentioned, but figure the more business we steer them, the better pricing for us all. Usually.

Sounds like you got a good battery, regardless.

Monsignor Shields, just ordered one direct from Optima, arrived in a couple days. Last one went a decade.

I know of a Cadillac V-16 that does just fine on a single 6-volt Optima. If the heavy lead acid battery's additional 175 CCA makes you feel better, mighty fine.
I'd rather adhere to "weight is the enemy" for any serious road car.

If trophy quest foremost, again, Jim's Battery Manufacturing, Youngstown, Ohio (800) 426-7580 can furnish appropriate fakey do battery cover that will placate any judge.

Common problem. The tangs are spring steel, but you should be able to bend them outward enough to impart greater pressure on the inner rim of your hubcaps. Also wrap the tangs with friction--not smooth electrical-- tape.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Optima Red Top 6-volt, 800 cold cranking amp, per PB above.
No off gassing, terminal fuzz, and only 18 lbs. Weight is the enemy. Packard made cars, not batteries, grease, motor oil, generators, tires, but if a trophy hound, Jim's Battery Manufacturing, 602 W Rayen Ave, Youngstown, OH 44502, (800) 426-7580 has period looking covers so no one will be the wiser.

They also have bolt-in 55-amp, 6-volt, + ground, one-wire alternators, absolutely no butchering required. Brighter head and tail lights, faster battery recovery. Tell Jim and Dolores that Mike Scott, Walnut Creek, CA '47 Super Clipper, and Hans Edwards, British Columbia '47 Custom Super, referred you.

The ornament was intended as homage to the noble pelican of the Packard family crest, plucking from its own breast to feed its young. In the '30s, one of Packard's advertising fellows thought the rapacious cormorant, which steals from other birds, more elegant.

What's lost in this shuffle is that the cars look cleaner, innately elegant with the standard bale ornament instead of the above gargoyle. You can't tack on elegance, understatement. Just as we've seen imposing Super 8s and Twelves in photos of big city Packard showrooms in the late '30s shod only in black sneakers, so also were they displayed with simple bale ornaments.

When people offer pricey reproductions of baubles the history of which they do not understand, their sole intent is clear.

The "cormorant" overpowers the car, makes it look comic opera. Rolls-Royce got by with a small figurine, Bentley a simple flying B, Hispano-Suiza a diminutive horizontal stork, even the overblown Duesenberg J for the arriviste a small suggestion of fleetness.

For the insecure, the Winged Goddess of Speed is less obtrusive and sleeker, as is, for earlier models, Adonis, Sliding Boy.

(Please don't tell us the cormorant was standard on '40 180s. Packard was waning by then, good sales that year only because of drastic price cuts, and 2/3rds of their output 110s; desperately playing on their past while GM unveiling racy new C bodies.)

If you want to offer something useful, how about silkscreening our original cowl delivery plates? Many have the inscribed signature, stamp of the dealership selling our cars, and we'd like to keep that, not have a new piece of tin from Taiwan.

And if you really want to be useful, there are any number of electromechanical bits in short supply for various models you might reproduce.

The focus on bolt on effluvia like the above underscores most today more interested in talking about their garage queens and looking at pictures of shiny old cars online.

Meanwhile, this wonderful site for the preservation and rejuvenation of some of the best road cars, luxe or not, of the first half of the 20th Century concludes with a forum for "Packard Parts & Miscellaneous." Have used it to offer spares for sale. It works. Try it.

Good advice.
And you the very man who set the 1940 Hudson speed record mentioned in my first post above.

John Fogarty/CCR-- The single best thing you can do for a Packard, any old car, is add overdrive, which is better than a high speed rear axle alone, because you reserve around town and steep hill tractability, it easier on your clutch/pressure plate. Since your car left the factory without overdrive-- first available in Packards your year -- you'll have a slightly taller final drive ratio than one delivered with overdrive. Far better in today's world, since in 1939, high gear flexibility was the mark of refinement, people liked to get into high and leave it there, and speed limits vastly lower.
In short, it's hard to overgear a Packard, but a real drag to run out of gears and you can always shift down or kick it out of overdrive.

Jeff Adkins, Moose Motors, Penngrove, CA, (Petaluma, in the North Bay Area) will have what you need. (707) 792-9985, packardguy54@sbcglobal.net. Tell him Mike Scott referred you. Tho' your car's optional overdrive was mechanical R-6, the electrical R-9 of 1940 through early '48, R-11 later '48 through '54 are better, R-11s slightly simplified, more plentiful so less money.

You'll have a car you can easily cruise 60-70 all day, less engine wear, better fuel economy, a more relaxed proposition, no downside.

A runner up for best thing for an old car would be radial tires.

Otherwise, double aught (00) solid copper battery cables, available at any big rig supply house, ends crimped and soldered, battery disconnect switch, the Cole Hersee brass marine sort available at any NAPA store or online ideal, rated for far more amps than your starter draws. Mount it on the floor just in front of the driver's seat. Avoid the cheap battery post mounted switches which require opening and closing your hood.

Flush with alcohol your brake system, use only DOT-5 silicone brake fluid since it is non-hydroscopic; will not draw moisture from the ambient air, which is what corrodes master and brake cylinders. Regardless of brand, all made by Dow-Corning. The USPS and military fleets use nothing but.

Part of a complete tune up in the day was checking head and manifold torque. Do so engine warm with accurate torque wrench. Do not overdo, esp. the manifold nuts because you want it snug but able to expand and contract.

Make sure your manifold heat control valve free. Introduce some graphite powder via kerosene to work it into both ends.

Drive car, relax. Your engine was flogged night and day in heavy 141-inch wheelbased 1948-50 bathtub New York City taxis, in boats 1947-51, after that in White trucks, a durable little mill. If never exposed to a hard freeze (two consecutive nights below 30 with wind chill factor), avoid antifreeze like the plague. Use only reverse osmosis water, available in gallon jugs at CVS, Rite Aid, etc. and a good rust/corrosion inhibitor like www.no-rosion.com or Red Line Water Wetter. For all you need to know about cooling system health, read the tech link on No-Rosion's site.

Like all inline sixes, your 245 is in perfect inherent balance. A wise auld mechanic's approach was to adjust valves .007-.009 intake, .010 -.012 with a go/no go feeler gauge since a trace of valve click better than scorched valves.
I long had a '40 One Twenty and the six essentially the same minus two cylinders and it ran like the wind. Your old body style has better ergonomics than the Clippers.

In the day, a Packard service dept. in most good sized towns, and any general garage able to adjust valves, aiming for dead silent valve train understandable, but even then, smarter to set them a trace loose. Once done, you can forget about them. You may be okay already, but check them.

10W/30 motor oil, any name brand, no ZDDP additives necessary since zinc levels back to where they were in the '70s and you can search for expanded debunking of that in the tab upper right home page here.

Keep it simple. There are some knowledgeable gents here who can provide specific info on any facet of your '39 Six.

In answer to your question as to personal speeds, be prepared, if you get answers, for the usual testosterone bump ups. Again, common sense. Listen to your engine, "feel" your car. I once got 22.5 mpg from my '40 120, 4.09 per non-overdrive models(in place of stumpier 4.36 & OD), 2.95:1 overall OD engaged, Denman bias plies 32 psi cold inc. much 65 mph cruising. Yes, really.

My '47 Super, having the 356 engine, is a slattern, a lush. With 1941-42 Buick Century/Roadmaster, 1940-47 356-engined Packards w/ OD on standard 127" wb the only cars of the Forties able to best the ton off a showroom floor. Being comfortable at 70+ is mute, unless empty roads, because brakes that were good then, even into the '60s, no match for today's four-wheel power discs w/ ABS driven by distracted, texting, cellphone nattering folk w/ no conception of the most basic physics.

Thanks, Acolds, for this better than usual conjecture, if still just that. Most of the torque peaks sound close, but the blown 288-ci Cord's, despite from the usually stringent Autocar, seems a mite optimistic, and the rpm too high, 260 ft. lbs./2,200 rpm would be closer. The fourth gear ratio is also off. Should be 2.95:1, a trace lower than the unblown Cords' 2.75:1 since superchargers like rpm.
The Cord's top speed is also inflated, since Cord engineers themselves could wrest an all out 108 mph at Bonneville.

The Packard Twelves certainly put out more torque than in the 1961 guestimates above. Jan. P. Norbye ascribed 348 ft. lbs. at 1,200-1,400 rpm for the 445-ci V-12, 366 at the same rpm for the 473 Twelve. But then in his book, "The 100 Greatest American Cars, 1904-78," Norbye claims in selection #89, the 1947 Packard Super Clipper, a top speed of 110, which is a bit generous, probably prompted by the alleged 110 mph of a '41 Buick Century with Compound Carburetion and rare, no-cost optional "Economy Rear Axle" of 3.6 instead of usual 3.9:1 at the GM Proving Grounds, which you know Flint engineers tweaked to the nines.

Some may wonder why this of interest to some of us gearheads. Simply, the higher the genuine top speed, the more relaxed cruising, which brings us back to CCR's concern.

Right. The dictum was to not "have your foot in the carburetor;" to not pull too much manifold pressure, or lug the engine.
Better to err on slight over rev than lugging, a free running engine happier, returning better fuel mileage.

Ain't requesting "Oxford/Harvard English," whatever that may be. Only enough thought and consideration that posters proof before clicking submit. Every household should have a dictionary, hence the wonder as to how much care goes into maintaining some of these survivors.

The missing "are" baffling you extraneous, purposely omitted, even as certain nervous tics and gingerbread on our cars. Less is more lost on many domestic old car owners, as much as "weight is the enemy."

A longtime friend who's owned 70+ Packards, junior and senior, pre- and postwar, since he in high school, i upon tricycle, is on his fourth or so Darrin, his swan song black, black top, blackwalls, basic bale ornament, gray interior, naught else. You really "see" the car.

Was decrying the "One Eighty" script below the front of the hood on '41 & '42 Darrins, which some think overblown, different affairs than the lithe, casual 1938-40 editions. A swoopy car's style should say it all. Even a schoolboy recognizes it.

Cars looks just like a One-Twenty to the man or woman on the street, then and now. You didn't see "Delage D8S," "Delahaye 145," "Bentley VI," "Silver Dawn," "Silver Wraith" plastered on their fare.

You didn't see "Super Eight," or "Twelve" body script on the elegant, chiseled '30s fire trucks either.

A fellow '40s Clipper owner thinks Packard should've foregone that appellation; doing so would've emboldened the Company's sole hit of the decade, further heightened their immediate popularity more than torrents of ad copy.

Doesn't matter whether "Clipper" meant to invoke the previous century's fastest merchant sailing ships, Pan Am's 1935 flying boat, or Joe DiMaggio. Winners don't need to recall others' imagery. Packard said it all, or would have.

Some at East Grand realized this, or they wouldn't have omitted Super Clipper and Clipper Super on the other side of the Customs, and Packard from the trunk lid of the 1948-50 Customs.

Editing, whether words or cars, always a good idea, especially when it's been decades since Ralph Estep, and GM production men increasingly running your company.