A labor of love is never a waste of time! That goes for cars and wives!

As usual howard, your knowledge is breathtaking. You are truly a national treasure of the Packard motor car company of afficionados!

A lithium battery car starter is a better solution to play your tunes on the road. You can also use it to start your car or charge your cell phone.

This car looks like a money pit to me! It would be so expensive to restore it that you would be underwater for probably three or four decades! Parts car?

Looking forward to seeing Roadster II

Thsnks to all! I will grt onti the disgnosis suggested. Thanks.

I rarely drive my car at night. But recently I was driving and the dark started to catch up with me. So I put on my headlights and what I noticed was that the ammeter seem to stay at discharge as long as the lights were on. When I cut the lights off it went back to the center. Is this normal? I had my electrical system checked about a year ago (maybe 500 miles since then) by Ross Miller and he said it was fine. I am running an Optima 6v battery
Any thoughts?
My car is a 47 2106.

My Packard has a wool mohair interior that is an excellent condition and the car is 73 years old.
Nothing cheap about that!

I just take my phone and a really nice bluetooth speaker. I usually play songs from the 40's as I think my 47 Clipper likes to relive the salad days when she was a Grande Dame (and still is to John Lawrence and I!)
NOTE:
Salad days refers to the period when one is young and inexperienced.
"the war seemed to be ending and so were my salad days"
Also the peak or heyday of something.
"journey back to the salad days of the railways"The phrase "salad days" became popular only from the middle of the 19th century, coming to mean “a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion." The metaphor comes from Cleopatra's use of the word 'green' — presumably meaning someone youthful, inexperienced, or immature!

I had an electric fuel pump installed as per BIGKEV. Now, the car starts much faster taking a load off my expensive starter and solonoid with the freshly machined copper guts!