If I am out and about and drinking I like either a Jack or Crown and Cola.

Now very few bars have Dr. Pepper, but if they do then I like what I jokingly refer to as a Kevorkian (aka Dr. Pepper and Jack = Dr. Jack).

If I am drinking beer my tastes gravitate towards ales, Newcastle being one of my favorites.

Also don't forget all the part plates for the various Parts List have been extracted, cropped, and filed away in the photo archive. So you guys can always reference those also.

Sorry to here about that Eric, I am sure you will find something will all our talents. That is a lot to of folks to layoff at one time for a city the size of Wichita, reminds me of the movie "Dick and Jane".

I work for a small company, but we develop and sell software to large companies. After seeing how some of the large companies treat their employees, I would never want to work for a large company. Sure there are usually better benefits, but to me there is not any more job security. I would rather work for a small company where you are treated like family, then a large company where you are just a piece of office furniture. Just my


Keep up the fight brother....you will find something.

John, those previous posts from Mal were from over a year ago about promoting Pinfo down-under.

On a Windows platform, PrntScreen captures the entire screen. Alt-PrntScreen captures the current active window. Both send the capture to the ClipBoard, so you have to paste the image into another program for saving and editing.

If you do a search on Download.com (my favorite program finder) for "Screen Capture", you should be able to find several utilities that give you more control, and make it easier.

In the Spring 2009 issue of Packard International Magazine they are running the PackardInfo.com web banner in the classified section to help get the word out and have offered to keep running in perpetuity. So thanks and salute to them!

Also if you read the article in that issue that covers the 2009 PI Membership Meet, you will find a picture of Russ and his lovely family who received the long distance award, and also there is a picture of my ugly mug that got snuck it there somehow with another reference to the PackardInfo.com website.

Howard,

Yes, OmniGraffle is a Mac program similar to Microsoft Visio.

I drew all the switch and relay shapes in that program, and then saved them as stencils so future diagrams would be easier to make. So now I have a small library of stencils with all the various shapes. All long as I have a picture of the various OD components, I can draw those also.

If anyone is interested, I can make those OmniGraffle Stencils available.

Stencils make it easy for future diagrams as all you have to do is drag the stencil onto your OmniGraffle drawing, and then "wire" it up!

Frank you have the exact same model as I do. Just different paint and interior code.

Based on your VN# or 5467-3588 your car is early to mid production run. So I would gather a guess that your car has the standard Ultramatic and not the Gear-Start Ultramatic.

For comparison, my car is 5492-9578 and was close to being one of last cars off the assembly line. My engine has a casting date of 8/15/54, so pretty late in the production run. The Gear-Starts were only in the cars and the very end of the production run, and that is why they are very hard to find. The '54 Gear-Start is really a proto-type transmission. But you are lucky as your transmission will cross with all of the previous years as far as parts go.

Luckly if you need part references, I have done most of the leg work for you on this model, and you will find those in the Parts X-Ref here on the website.

As far as your grill situation is involved, unless someone filled all the various trim holes where the grille extensions mounted, and the fluted filler pieces mounted, I would guess that at some point the entire front clip (fenders, grille, and bumper) were replace with ones from a 51/52 donor car. The hood is really the same, so hard to tell. Only real difference in the fenders is the various trim hole locations. The '54 would have more around the front of the fenders for the extra pieces. But the front bumper, and bumperettes are different. I know that both Sandy Chico and Kanter have all of the grille parts, but it would be pricey. Unfortunately, there is nothing interchangeable on the grilles from the 51/52 models to the 53/54 models because of the different shaped grille surround.

If you need headlight rings, the '54 Junior (Clipper) headlight rings are the same as the '53 Senior ones, but not the same as the '53 Juniors or the '54 Seniors.


The picture I posted above is how a '54 Deluxe/Super would have left the factory as far as the trim and grille is concerned, and is probably a good one to use for reference. I have other pics I have used for reference if you need help with anything.

Its like a roll of high strength saran-wrap. Similar to what they wrap pallets with.

Yup those Swap Coolers only work good in the South West. Actually my house does not have central air, so we use a swamp cooler (aka Evaporative Cooler) to cool the entire house. Works very (except on humid days), and is cheap to run.

You see lots of the "low-rider" style classic cars around here with the window-mounted JATO style ones.