I think it is the reflection off the glass. The oval holes do not have cardboard on them, just the metal holder which is the same distance as the other bulbs would be. I do not recall seeing any cardboard on any of the bulb holders. I might be missing them?

Congrats! The car looks great!

5-2-17

My wife brought home some colored plastic sheets in red and green. They were very thin and very translucent. The light from my flashlight easily overpowered the color. I tried adding some tissue paper to it, but that made the red very pink looking.

Decided to cut some small squares out of the plastic and stack them together with double sided tape in between the layers to hold them together. I stacked them until the color showing with my flashlight was pleasing.

I popped out the cardboard/plastic piece that was in my old filter holder. It was a good fit and looked die cut, but no way would Packard have done that. It looks like it would have been for some kind of delete option, but why not just take the bulb out and who would want to delete a high beam or turn signal indicator? Weird.

Anyway the layers held together well and I put a piece of tissue paper on the stack and used the old plastic to trace the circle.

The thickness of the stack made it fit in the groove easily. Both colors came out pretty good. The dash looks like Christmas now!

I only ran a temporary wire from the bulb socket of the turn signal to the metal on the dash and it worked a lot better so I need to come up with some way to ground. I will probably use multiple points to make sure I don't have to take the instruments out again for a long time.

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Great looking car! Get those metal valve stems ASAP!

Thanks Howard, we are on the same page with adding a ground wire to the instrument panel. The thing I'm surprised about is the speedo cable is a ground and the lights are still giving fits. I'll add a wire anyway and maybe wrap some bare wire around the bulb housings to be extra sure. It's a minor but annoying bug especially since I have changed all the wiring.

Attached are some pics of the "filters" that were on my bulbs. One is amber (maybe faded red, but I do not see any hint of red on it). That was on the turn signal indicator. The other is a weird red lens, but with some kind of cork backing that blocks all light! It must be some kind of repair but why would anyone think that would work? No wonder I thought my high beam indicator never worked! The turn signal light (amber) is also very loose in the housing. The high beam (and non transparent) lens is tight in the housing.

Thanks for the offer for the colored styrene. My wife thinks she has some at her work so I will try that first.

Of course my other instrument panel is packed away and very inaccessible so I cannot check those filters.

As an aside, I also rebuilt the rear dome light switches (I added an extra one on the passenger side since I had an extra switch) since they were not working anymore. I had rebuilt them before, but they got corroded very quickly.

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Been fighting with my turn signal and high beam lights. I went so far as to rebuild the sockets again. They work great outside of the car but once back in the car they are finicky. Seems like a bad ground but no amount of sanding the socket or instrument housing seems to fix it. Also the filter on my high beam appears to have some kind of cork looking material in it. It's supposed to be blue isn't it?

Howard I'm right there with you!

4-15-17

Beautiful day in Wisconsin today so I "rushed" a quick car prep because I was eager to drive it again. I wanted to change the oil, but no time for that. It was too nice not to be driving! I did check it and it was still full. Seems like the car has not lost any oil since the last oil change and my 20 mile or so drives. Tires were perfectly inflated, but I noticed both rear tires appear to suffer from the hubcap "creep" that has been posted here before and were putting pressure on the rubber valve stems. I removed and repositioned the hubcaps and will have to convert to metal valve stems at some point. Finished the prep by wiping off the seats...no headliner and the black insulation is still falling off the roof in places leaving black residue on the seats. I would have left it, but the family decided to come so had to at least make her look decent!

Did my usual 20 mile route with no issues. Car ran very well. Overdrive still appears to not be working so I want to address that this season. Decided to end the drive with a stop at the local lighthouse.

If you have read my blog before you might recall the incident I had last year going to the same lighthouse where I could not get the car into reverse when leaving.

In order to avoid this embarrassing problem again, I parked in a flatter area, kept the car in neutral and relied on my parking brake that I had fixed.

Time at the lighthouse was very enjoyable, except with the thoughts in the back of my head about the car not going into gear or not starting when we were leaving.

After about 15 minutes, we decided to go. Got in the car and tried to start it. It gave 4 turns and then nothing! NOOOOO! Not again! Is this place cursed?

Popped open the hood and sprayed starter fluid down the carb hoping it would catch on the next turn of the engine. Went to try to start again and nothing! Dash lights but no starter noise.

At this point my wife was getting pretty panicked (and pissed). She asked 5 times what's wrong and how much is this going to cost to fix!???

Rooting around under the hood, I disconnected and reconnected the battery. This made the car turn over a few seconds and then nothing again!

By now I'm completely embarrassed and freaking out in my head that I'm going to have to tow the car.

I tried to calm down and think out the problem. Felt around the wires and noticed the battery cable to the starter solenoid moved. I gave it a twist to tighten it and gave it a try again. VRRROOOMMM! The car came to life again. I closed the hood as quick as I could and got the heck out of there!

I doubt we will be returning to the lighthouse anytime soon. Lesson learned...do not rush the pre-season check before driving your car! Check fluids, tires and loose connections!

We are home safe and sound now. Even drove around the neighborhood after to regain confidence in the car. Hopefully the next voyage will be uneventful!

Wow congrats! No matter how you are judged, you have an awesome car!