Good eye on the '54 Cavalier. I didn't see the odd placement of the generator at first. Now that I'm looking closer they have the horns mounted on the hood at the rear for some odd reason. Also a modern washer reservoir, and the wiper motor is missing. Interesting.

Howard - that's the diagram I was looking at in the manual. It's a much different design than my '54 so it took me a minute to figure out where things connected. With the car being 12V, I don't know how I could've tested the gauge without damaging it. The manual says to ground the sender wire, which is essentially the same thing that I did. So either way the gauge would've received a full 12V.

If the gauge is blown, how do I remove it? Does the whole instrument cluster come out in one piece or do I remove each gauge face separately? If I can get the whole cluster out easily then I wouldn't mind digging into it this winter and cleaning up the wiring horror show behind it. But I'd like to get the car back on the road before then and get some other problems sorted out.

-Kevin

That door panel looks great! Did you do it yourself?

Thanks Kev, found the wiring diagram for '38. I need to check the Literature Archive more....I've been going to Model Information mostly but it doesn't have all the other documents listed there.

I have been reading through the service manual and ran the tests they said for the gauge, which is why I'm perplexed. The gauge responded the first time I grounded it out and never again after that. Gauge itself should be grounded but I guess I can check that too.

To fix the wiring under the dash all the modern additions will need to be deleted (A/C, air handler, etc). It would be a monumental task and I'm hesitant to even attempt it. But the way it is now I can't make sense of what anything is or where it goes. There are at least 6 additional switches, rheostats, and buttons mounted under the dash that I'm clueless as to what they are for. Tracing the wires is impossible.

-Kevin

Getting back to working on the Super. I haven't had time to do anything with it for several months.

Right now I'm trying to figure out the fuel gauge problem. Gauge never reads anything. There are two posts on the rear of the fuel gauge, and tried grounding the one in the center of the fuel gauge....turns out that just makes sparks at the ground. The upper post is the one that brings the signal from the fuel tank. So I grounded that one out tonight for less than a second. The gauge flew immediately to Full, and went immediately back down to Empty when I quickly released ground. Now it doesn't move at all when grounded anymore.

Did I blow the gauge? The car has been converted to 12V. No idea what sort of protection is present for dash gauges and lights. None of the lights work on the dash and none of the gauges work except for speedo (mechanical), oil pressure (mechanical), and temperature. Everything else (ammeter, fuel gauge, clock, etc) is dead. It's been this way ever since we got the car running again. No idea if they ever worked in the past.

I will still drain and drop the tank (ugh) to check the fuel sender. But I wonder if there is something else going on here. The wiring behind the dash is a nightmare....so many additions that I have no idea what anything does or where it goes. Is there a wiring diagram out there for 38's?

-Kevin

Same 2 prong for 1941-1958. I believe it's easier to access from under the car.

Dwight Heinmuller has replacement switches. Keep scrolling down the page to find it: Packard Parts

-Kevin

Some of the head studs go directly into the water jacket. When we rebuilt my dad's '38 Super engine we used sealant on all those.

We had to rebuild the engine twice because the first donor block we used (the original cracked) apparently had too much corrosion inside the water jacket that we were not aware of. When the machine shop bored the cylinders it ended up creating a weak spot in the cylinder wall. It was not visible or detectable. Upon first start up we found that one of the cylinders was not firing, and we found water when we took out the spark plug. Apparently the pressure from the piston blew out the weak spot in the wall and water quickly followed. Upon disassembly we found another spot under one of the valve seats that was thin enough to force water through. Bottom line was the block was trash and we had to source a new donor block.

I saw that you bored your cylinders so that's what came to my mind. But with your pressure testing I would think that a leak like we had would have shown up when you tested. Maybe a pinhole leak or crack in the valley under the valve seats? I would think that magnafluxing would show the problem areas.

Sorry I can't be more help.

-Kevin

Four round bumpers. Steele has them. My '54 didn't have them when I got the car (didn't have a lot of things) so I ended up putting them on. Got rid of a slight rub that would happen at the front corners of the hood against the splash panel.

-Kevin

The few body swaps I've seen of Packards looked terrible. The Packard bodies just don't fit on modern frames very well. The wheelbase was off, the car sat too high, etc. Really looked bad.

Regarding the brake drums....what places did you check? There are the major suppliers like Kanter, Max Merritt, etc. Tucson Packards and Packards Southwest are others that have gobs of old parts sitting around. su8overdrive has worked with another fellow, Moose Motors I believe, that has all the brake parts you need. I think you'll be able to find some drums for less than $500.

Most of the other brake parts (lines, hoses, wheel cylinders, shoes) can be sourced from modern suppliers. Napa will have most everything you need there. Or the major suppliers listed earlier will also have them, or rebuild kits. You can easily rebuild the master cylinder and wheel cylinders for cheap. It's not hard to do at all.

Wiring can be done multiple ways. A reproduction harness can be had from Packard Club regions, but they are very expensive. On the plus side they are 100% correct and basically plug and play. The cheaper way is to get a universal harness from Painless Performance and terminate the wires yourself. More work but less expensive.

Carburetor kits are easy to come by and not expensive. You can either rebuild it yourself or hand it off to someone to do it for you.

I would say service the front suspension first before you go about changing it. You may like it after it is working properly. There are disk brake kits (Wilwood) that you can use. They are expensive and quite a bit of work to install. Pretty sure the master cylinder needs to be changed in order to use disc brakes. All things to be aware of....costs add up when you are changing things. Again, maybe get the drum brakes working properly and see how you like it. When everything is functioning as it should the brakes on these cars are actually pretty good.

-Kevin

acolds - in my case it's just a busy time of life so I don't get the time to hit projects like I want to. So I squeeze them in when I can. I'm just glad I can still find time to work on the cars.

53 Cav - the grille and bumper turned out really nice. Thanks for giving me the motivation to tackle mine. I'm aiming for the first weekend in September to get it done.