Wooden wedges for loosening the head can be found at most hardware stores
in a pack. they are used for shimming door frames when they are being installed.
Couple dollars for two dozen or so.

John

Ross is correct the roller, valve lifter arms are connected to those covers.
You may be able to remove them, with valves in place, much prying and cussing,
but I doubt you can get them back on without removing the valves.
This is why you see so many engines with slight signs of leaks around those covers.

Good luck, John

Dad's 56
I have 3 of those screw holders, one I cut down to 2 inches for working behind the dash in close quarters.
One is made for holding philips head screws.
John

Spencer,
The engine in the 643 has a system in the oil system that feeds oil to the sides of the cylinder walls to lubricate the piston skirts on start up,
it is controlled by a valve on the right side of the engine where the oil pressure gauge feed line is located.

It is controlled by the choke cable and is only active when the choke is on, if you follow the choke cable from the fire wall toward the carb. you will see it goes to the oil valve then the linkage goes up to the choke on the carb.

Being that it draws oil from the same place as the oil gauge would explain the drop in pressure when the choke is on.

Sincerely, John

Go to a hardware store and get a pack of wooden wedges for fitting door frames.
Use a stiff putty knife to get started and use the wedges around the edges of the head to lift it enough to get a hold of it.
I also made two T handles from 2 spark plugs and 1/2 inch bar stock to lift heads off once broken loose.

John

Ken,
Keep in mind that in this case the current flow out of the battery, to and thru the starter and ignition, etc. is determined by the smallest cable attached to the battery which is '0' gauge.

John

Remove the collar that is on the shaft below the dist housing

The easy way is to grip the dist. housing and with a soft hammer give the end of the shaft a whack.

The collar is not tite and should come off the shaft with the help of a flat blade screwdriver.

The pin holding the two shafts together is a loose fit and will come out easly, then the shaft will come out of the dist. housing with a little help from a brass punch and a hammer, I find that the end of the shaft is swollen the last inch from the holes and the slot.

John

I would not experiment with a belt sander resurface. I don't think that it will hold the tolerance needed. You want to remove the least amount of material possible.
You don't want remove any more material then is needed. the head is 70+ and no way to know how many times it's been shaved.

I would look for a shop that does diesel engine work as the head size is pretty normal size to them.

John

Find the hole
Clean the area to bare metal
Solder hole closed
Good as new
The way it was fixed back when they fixed things not replaced.

John

Rich,
All of the response's are right on about carrying points and condenser in the glove box.

Now the bad news,
Your car has a NorthEast distributor and points are not hard to find, they don't exist!

Now the good news.
There is a conversion kit available that will convert those distributors to a set of modern points that are readly available

These kits are available from the major Packard parts sources.

To see if you need the kit pull the dist. cap off and see if it has one set of points or two, if two it has not been converted and could use to conversion.

If the dist. points look like this pic. it has been converted, the points are NAPA CS851 and the condenser is NAPA AL869.

John

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