First and foremost - the Packard Shop Manuals of those years arent too helpful - perhaps we could help here if you'd just tell us SPECIFICALLY what you want to know - what you are working on.

Be sure and tell us what KIND of Packard. There are Packards and there are PACKARDS in those years - for all practical purposes, two ENTIRELY different factories turning out two ENTIRELY different products - there is NO parts interchangeability between the so called "small" Packards - the so called "Packard Eights" ( actually a continuation of the "120" series) and the so called "big" Packards (for which I DO have the Shop Manuals - but again, they wont help much).

So - let us know SPECIFICALLY what mechanical issues you are working on - perhaps we can help.

Roger may forget why my '38 V-12 Formal Sedan was called 'tar baby' in those years. It is a funny story which he might remember if you remind him. Being a Formal Sedan, it had a formal leather top (blocked out quarter windows where they would otherwise be in a standard sedan).

Well, the leather on the top was pretty far gone, so I removed it, and coated the sheet metal underneath with rubber under-coating. I textured it as best I could, to LOOK like leather from a distance. ( Well....what could a broke teen-ager do ? ) Remember, this was in an era when Bob Gottlieb, in his book CLASSIC CARS AND ANTIQUES, said "why spend a hundred dollars on a complete restoration of a beat-up classic, when for $175 you can get the best of the low mileage originals.....!

Anyway, the late Tony Heinsbergen "christened" it "Tar Baby" after that, and the name stuck.

Then as now, I drive the Twelve regularly - you may have seen it down thru the years.

Incidentally, I was the guy who made up the "Advertising Board" for Charlie - the framed series of photos showing the steps of over-hauling a Packard V-12 engine, that he proudly displayed in his shop till his last days.

Todd:

Thank you for your private E mail post - but suggest we converse in here where everyone can see it. Our babbling about the old days might be of interest to the group.

First of all, what was the NAME of the guy you knew who lived above Barham and went to Valley View Elementry ? We lived on Blair Drive, up at the top of the hill. I knew several car nuts in the neighborhood. But I did not go to Valley View - we didnt move up to Blair Drive until '52, when I was already in Junior High ( Le Conte - from which I got expelled for fighting - then finished Jr. High at Bancroft).

Re: your question about "old military equipt". I presume you are referring to the collection of World War ONE tanks and trucks that Gary Holtz had stored in a garage that was part of the old Barham Estate on the west side of Barham Blvd. He shared the garage with Tony Heinsbergen, who took me to my first CCCA, So. Cal. Region meet in '55 and got me signed up as a member.

The guys I used to hang around with in the '50's, were Wayne Gilman (still alive) Dave Permutter (no idea what happened to him = '38 Cad. V-16) John Osborne '35 Packard V-12, Bob Locke (very much alive!) '32 Cad V-12, Ted Barton '32 Cad V-12 (very dead) and too many others to name who were active in the CCCA, So Calif in those years.

Of COURSE I know what happened to the '37 V-12 Club Sedan of Roger's - was just "testing" you to see if you were legit!

Sad to say So Calif bears little resemblence to the fun place where I grew up ( that's a lie..I never grew up). I remember with a great deal of fond-ness those early CCCA So Cal Region tours, where we'd typically have a turn-out of 50 of the big engined "super luxury" cars of the pre-war era (that was before the word "classic" came to mean ANYTHING you were trying to sell) (just had some "Classic Coke" with my "Classic Chicken" while reading about "Classic Chevrolet Pick Up Trucks....!). It was clean, nice, and the roads werent crowded mad-houses.

The drives to our favorite meet places were typically pleasant on two lane roads (only four lane road after leaving Los Angeles to the north and north west were 101 and 99 to Bakersfield) and of course the speeds were such that we werent all in that much of the way.

By comparison, Roger and I left the recent PAUL CERF MEMORIAL MEET at the Lakewood Country Club together, heading north on the Long Beach Freeway. In the RIGHT lane, both going 70-75 mph...(both of us have "high gear" rear axle ratios) WE WERE IN THE WAY ! Not just in the way of cars...but also in the way of garbage trucks !

RE - "babbit" in '38 Super Eight con rods.

PLEASE SHUT THAT THING OFF AND DONT DRIVE IT. I MEAN IT. THIS IS NO JOKE.

Here's the problem. The '35 and later Packards of ALL series had connecting rods designed for "slipper" or "insert' type precision bearings. Thus the "big end" hole is larger than the earlier rods that came from the factory with poured babbit.

That means the layer of soft bearing material when you pour babbit into '35 and later rods, IS MUCH THICKER, and thus MUCH MORE FRAGILE.

When it goes, and it WILL go, it comes off in big sheets, leaving you with a ruined crank-shaft. You DONT want to know what happens when you ruin a "senior" Packard crank-shaft. The balance weights have to come off. This involves a long technical discussion that would put most of our readers to sleep.

There is a REASON why the "poured babbit" method is discredited and consigned to the trash dump of history. It is bad enough when you try it on con rods that were designed for it.

To summarize the technical problem, the stroke of the eight cyl. Packards is FIVE INCHES ! The intertial/centrifgual loads on those crank "big ends" is horrific compared to a modern engine. If that isnt bad enough, given the low gear rratios of senior Packards, the Packard engine with a stock geared car is turning over probably TWICE the rpm of a modern vehicle at the same speed.

Thus the shock loadings on that babbit material, even at 30 mph, in a stock geared senior Packard, is MANY times more severe than on a modern car at wide open throttle.

DONT RUIN THAT CRANK-SHAFT...SHUT THE THING OFF, and LEAVE it off until you can fix those rods right with INSERT-type bearings.

(take this from someone who just might know what they are talking about..and just might have just a little experience from just a few years of working on pre war Packards....!)

You dont need my name to identify me to Roger ! Just ask him about "Tar Baby" - if he remembers why Tony Heinsbergen (long deceased) gave my 12 that name, he will probably smile..!

Eric - I am not picking on you personally - just commenting on the nature of the times - these days, people seem less concerned with "precision of thought", and more interested in just "proving a point" without regard to the facts.

I am sure, having watched your posts over the years, that you are a nice guy and a damn good and inventive mechanic. But why stick your nose into a subject you are not familiar with ? Again - this is a rhetorical question - NOT picking on you personally.

C'mon..man...WHAT "Packard Original Parts" to convert a Twelve over to RIGHT hand drive ? Dosnt it embarss you just a BIT that there are people in here who DO know just a bit about the technical and engineering differences between Packard eight CYL. cars, (with which you are obviously VERY competent and familiar) and Packard TWELVE cyl. cars ?

Hydraulic clutch ? Eh ? You ever actually SEEN a Packard V-12 car with the floor-boards out ?

Our Australian friend has confirmed my suspicions and answered my questions. Please..please - I am sure ALL of us value your imput when you are discussing technical matters in your MANY areas of competence.

When you can tell me what pages of the PACKARD STORES (Packard's name in the earlier years for their Parts Dept. Book) I have over-looked, THEN I will be impressed with your comments on Packard V-12's.

I happen to be one of those "older" guys, was actually BORN in a Packard, and have just a little bit of hands-on as well as technical background on bearing issues as they relate to pre-war Packards.

I also have an extremely SHORT fuse and NO patience with those who put their mouths in gear before letting out the clutch on their brain - for the simple reason is I really LOVE Packards, and truly HATE it when a Packard owner is mis-led into turning what SHOULD be an incredibly reliable, capable, well-engineered product into unpleasant-to-drive unreliable junk.

There is NO debate on the absurdity of using "poured babbit" for connecting rod bearings, especially in pre-war Packards. It is a DIS CREDITED proceedure, ABANDONED as being WHOLLY UNSATISFACTORY in ANY automotive engine today.

With this qualification. If you have NO use for your Packard other than as costume jewelery, to be displayed at car shows, and trailored back and forth, AND YOU WILL BE HONEST and WARN A PURCHASER your car is not fit to actually drive, THEN and ONLY then can I see the point in using poured babbit for engine rod bearing material.

If any of you have a serious interest in how fragile poured babbit is, how unsuccessful it became as the highways of the 1930's permitted higher speeds, see what you can research about "Opening Day" of the Penn. Turnpike in the late 1930's. To summarize, a lot of people thought it was a LOT of fun on opening day, to go tearing over the new expressway, and as a result, a lot of tow trucks had a lot to do !

Todd - were you at E.C. Last's funeral ? If you were, you will remember me - I did the obit., and my Twelve led his funeral procession.

(for those of you who wonder who E.C. Last was, let me give a little background. Charlie bought a '37 V-12 right before the war; converted it to propane so Helen could get fuel (we had gas rationing during the war - since Helen wasn't an essential war worker, she could only get five gallons per week). He was one of our first members of the Classic Car Club of America. He was an aircraft hydraulic mech. during the war - after the war, he got a job at Pasadena Packard, and since he knew Twelves backwards and fowards, he wound up handling their Twelve service customers (lots of Twelves in Pasadena, Calif in those days-an upper income section north and east of down-town Los Angeles).

I met Charlie around '55, "apprenticed" in his shop in Alhambra.

Charlie finally closed his shop in Alhambra and went into semi retirement, but continued to do a little work out of a small place he rented (I forget the name of the street).

Charlie was a really swell guy.

I think it was a reas. question. The car in the photo I was referring to, is a '39 V-12. As I noted, it was my understanding, that to register a car for street use in Australia, it HAD to be RIGHT hand drive. Turns out that assumption, if it was ever ENTIRELY correct, is not correct now.

In either event, we all come in here for pretty much the same thing - to see what we can do to learn, and to help, regarding Packards. I did not say it is IMPOSSIBLE to convert a Packard V-12 to right hand drive; but I sure as hell would be surprised if it was EVER tried ANYWHERE.

Given the differences between the Packard Twelve ENGINE, its RUNNING gear (no, it is not the same as the Super Eights - suspension components, exhaust component diameter, frame, etc. all thicker, heavier, than the Super Eights) I remain fairly certain there is, was, and never will be any such thing as a RIGHT hand drive Packard V-12.

I know how the thing got its name...see...some German guy who had a '42 180, was driving around in Russia.. came upon the Russian car...said...."VAS IS ZISS ?"