Gorgeous, and some of us prefer those 385-ci eights to Twelves. The painted grille shell and headlight pods whisper understatement, confidence, make a Rolls-Royce look gauche. Too bad Packard didn't do this with all their '30s seniors.

I'd prefer body color spokes, but a lovely car all the same.

Good reminders above. Antifreeze is sweet to dogs, cats, children and will kill them. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if your car never exposed to two consecutive nights of a hard freeze; outdoors below 30 with wind chill, or does not have air conditioning, avoid antifreeze like the plague. Cars w/ AC even in LA or Phoenix require 15% antifreeze.

Also avoid soluble oil, an outmoded practice. Like antifreeze, it leaves cooling inhibiting film on passages. A Chrysler engineer member of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club described this in one of their 1989 newsletters. For all the cooling system preservation info you'll need, see the tech link at no-rosion.com
https://www.norosion.com/tech_coolant.htm

Use reverse osmosis water, never distilled, which is ion hungry, leaching minerals (copper, lead, tin, iron) from your radiator and cooling system. You can get RO water for 49 cents a gallon at usually pricey Whole Foods, or, if feeling flush, pun unintended, 50 cents at Sprouts. Bring your own jugs. No, not your wife or paramour. Sorry. This is a Packard site, so we'll have decorum.

All you want is RO water and either No-Rosion or Redline Water Wetter. Nothing else. As an automotive chemist explained, water itself is a good water pump lubricant.

As with politics, so many products marketed to fear and ignorance.

Good grief, that's more thorough than needed, and i thank you for the effort, sir.

That's the biggest, at the front of the camshaft, right? Bless ye, 1stElim.

1stElim-- Absolutely, and thanks. Need the biggest journal diameter. Thanks again!

?

Pardon, misread. But since T-85 first gear unsynchronized, can't see an advantage over Packard's own complete R11 transmission with R11 overdrive. Imagine some finagling to use T-85, while complete R11 a bolt-in proposition.

Meanwhile, heed Ross's advice regarding cylinder head. If a straight edge shows it necessary, just kiss the head; lightly surface, no more. Ross knows all these engines.

Noted an earlier post from you asking about air conditioning. Have never fathomed having a vintage/older car and burdening the engine with more power-robbing accessories, esp. when you're looking for a power edge. So dress lightly in the heat, open the cowl vent, vent windows, roll down the windows. You'll survive.

Someone's gotta win, why not you?

Either of those greens are good colors. But not together. Packard never two-toned any of their cars from 1935-40. Of course, junior/senior 120/160/180 shared every piece of sheet metal 1940-42, other than the 120" wb '42 junior Clippers, which have a seven-inch shorter front clip. They are identical cowl back, as are the 1940-42 old/traditional bodied Six, which wheelbase five inches shorter, that entire length chopped out of the front clip.

As suggested, don't reinvent the wheel. Packard designed your club coupe, came up with a palette of sophisticated colors, and having two-tones through 1934, knew what they were doing. There are no body breaks 1935-40 so two-toning such cars always looks like some guy who doesn't know what he's doing or have any knowledge of the cars, the times, just wants an "old timey" car. Trust us on this.

Five-main 327 per Ross, and 288 head, with overdrive, that'll be a jaunty yet elegant road car. Break a leg.

BTW, when the Cad-LaSalle gearboxes blew apart in Don Garlitts' Chrysler hemi 426 top fuel 1,000 hp rail dragsters in the '60s, hence scatter shields, he switched to the '39 Packard R6 junior transmission --not even the 1940-early '48 R9 or late '48-'54 R11 -- and problem solved, so unsure why you're using a T83. Since you're adding overdrive, seems easier to install the slightly simplified, more plentiful, therefore less expensive R11 complete unit. Again, Jeff Adkins, Moose Motors, lifelong Packard wrench, has some of these, (707) 792-9985, packardguy54@sbcglobal.net. Jeff has all the mechanical and electrical parts 1935-56, knows every bolt and lock washer on your car. Mike Grimes at Merritt, Mike Chirco at Tucson Packard, whose numbers, emails i gave above, also have everything you'll ever need, as does John Ulrich, whose first Packard was a '40 120, which all these years later he still owns, along w/ an equally sharp '32 Light Eight roadster,https://julrichpackard.com.

Please tell these four gents that Mike, '47 Super Clipper, Walnut Creek, CA, referred you. And as MalOz Down Under will ask, please add your "new" Packard to the Vehicle Registry here.

My apologies, 1stElim, for assuming you were a rod/custom guy. Saw the line about '60s Fords on your opening post, assumed you were considering such a V-8.

As mentioned in my first reply, the four extra main bearings in the 1940-50 356 were superfluous, but included because Packard's competitors would pounce on that. The 356 was otherwise an enlarged 282 (One-Twenty) with the Wilcox Rich hydraulic valve lifters Cadillac had since '36. Since the 288/327 introduced for '48 was only a revision of the '35 257 (identical bore/stroke as the Olds inline 8), '36-'47 282, Ross is right, the nine mains in the 327 were a marketing gambit, a dated one, since the entire industry other than Packard and Pontiac, who both stuck with inline L-heads through '54, was by the early '50s focused on ohv V-8s.

No, no, no. Do not two tone that jaunty club coupe. No Packards junior or senior 1935-40 were two-toned. Look at their bodies. To do so screams yahoo.

Color. I spent three weeks agonizing whether to paint my originally black '40 Packard Blue, Blackhawk gray luminescent, or Sea Cloud gray. The first won simply as i was not long out of college, all this was new to me, and i wanted the most Packard a Packard possible. In retrospect, had i picked Blackhawk gray, i might've had it longer'n 1974-83. Esp. were it a sporty club coupe. Note yours is in Phoenixville, PA, not far from the College Hill/Easton my pictured 120 from; cylinder head on the rear floor, three pistons and rods in the trunk, heater, no radio.

With rebuilt engine, new wiring harness, painted, drove it from Easton to my old greater NYC, then down to Colonial Williamsburg, Charlotte, I-40 to Barstow, CA, somehow to I-5 north, picked up 680N to Walnut Creek in Feb.,'76 w/ $300 to my name in travelers' checks in five and a half days.

Sold as you see it above in '83 because side view, rear 3/4 had that generic look like a '38 Buick, whose hood louvers Packard copied after that year Buick ended Packard's consecutive 1935-37 Gallop Poll Most Beautiful Car. Packard regained that title for 1939, but don't know who won 1940-47 and would like to. Doubt Packard won in '40 because of GM's racy new C bodies, certainly not '41 when Packard was box office poison, their new Clipper not introduced 'til April, '41, used car inventories traditionally lowest that month their hedge. Ford did the same with their reskinned Falcon in '64.

Color can make or break a car. Take your time, study Packard's 1940 paint chart. If you share my preference for understatement, get the basic bale hood ornament, black walls and one of those grays, a light gray interior for contrast, nothing else beyond OD. You rarely saw fog/driving lights on cars of any price in the day. I was young, so had those, and the fold down rear trunk guard.

You lease heavy equipment or are an excavator? After selling to a local early middle-aged exec, he divorced a couple years later, it wound up owned by a wonderful couple, Lelio and Georgia Giorgi, Lelio an effusive gent whose company dug the Moscone Center, the biggest excavation in San Francisco history. Lelio raved about the car whenever i saw him and his charming wife at some show with it. He'd always compliment me on how well and thoroughly i'd had it rebuilt, how strong it ran, a cut above most concoursmobiles.

However, he liked the earlier Art Deco looks of a '36 LaSalle, so sold "my"/his '40 120 to buy a '36 LaSalle sedan Neil Young had tired of.

But after driving the LaSalle, he realized it wasn't in the same road car league, not as finely engineered as the Packard, so bought another '40 120 sedan, Inverness green, which was nice, but as Lelio volunteered, not nearly as good as mine had been. Georgia always laughed, reminded me how Lelio kicked himself for selling my Packard and buying Young's LaSalle, which as you know was only a gussied Oldsmobile straight eight.

Skip Laguna maroon. It's common and blah. Like Niagara gray you may as well leave it in primer. Whatever you do, no Cuban tan, Miami sand. Hohum, done to death.

Retorque the head and manifold engine warm a couple times after rebuilding. Don't overdo the manifold nuts. You want it able to expand and contract. Make sure the manifold heat control valve free and adjusted per shop manual. Fresh grease in the distributor cup so your shaft doesn't wear.

You'll win the race.

And so you've got a '40 120, my first Packard. The lightest Packards ever offered were that year. Mine below. Ran like the wind with non-overdrive models' 4.09 instead of 4.36 axle in factory overdrive 120s. We added overdrive. 2.95:1 overall final gearing, same as a blown Cord (unblown 2.75:1 but superchargers like a little rpm).

Once got 22.5 mpg, much of it at 60, even 65, 32 psi Denman bias plies. I kid you not. But then a fat '51 Lincoln w/ that 336-ci flathead truck engine managed 25.488 mpg in that year's Mobilgas Economy Run over hill and dale. It had a 3.31 rear axle, in overdrive a final 2.39:1. It was tuned by Bill Stroppe and Clay Smith, driven by a pro, Les Viland. Chrysler complained, the car impounded, dismantled after the run and determined to be entirely stock.

My '47 356 Super Clipper is a drunken b__ch. The lowest slut on the road. Comic opera hood length. More locomotive than automobile. 356 cars understeer. My '40 120 was like a silky blend of MG-T series and old pick up truck, climbed hills like a goat, better than my Super Clipper in that regard. Better ergonomics than the Clippers. '40s are far easier to work on, other than removing the fan.

Eliminator, again, i am not a rod 'n' kustom fan, and were we neighbors, we'd probably be laughing at each other. But i'm glad to see any retain and perhaps "sweeten," tune, or tweak the genuine article. The heart and soul of any car is its engine. Lose that, you're left with the aforementioned Frankenccar. (I make an exception for this site's founder and Grand Overseer, BigKev, as he's building a Packuar or Jagard, an XK six into a '37 six. And the Jag dohc is still in inline six and hales from autumn, 1948.)

Re: your hp range, consider that the four-barreled, five-main-bearinged 327 was rated from the factory at 180 hp/4,000 rpm, 300 ft. lbs. 2,000. So porting, polishing, perhaps lightening the flywheel, advancing the timing a couple degrees (don't overdo it but i'm trying not to write an SAE paper) should easily get you to 200+. Again, full synthetic 10W/30 flows better than dino or semi, so there's another one or two hp.

Beyond that, i defer to any on this forum or www.jalopyjournalcom who've walked the talk. You want "I've done this and here's what..." not more conjecture.

But 200hp is heap plenty, all the more if you jettison a couple hundred pounds from the car, and perhaps driver if not already slim. I lost 26 lbs. in six weeks going from pescetarian to vegan, used the remaining extra virgin olive oil for furniture polish--also good on leather, but obviously can smell, so get jojoba oil at Trader Joe's. It's better for leather, car interior trim, shoes, belts, etc. than neatsfoot oil or anything.

Remember, when Bentley nudged their '52 Continental prototype, Olga, up to an all out 119 mph, they did so after removing the spare tire, backseat, and inflating the tires to dangerously high pressure. Comical are the articles and auction spiel citing "120 mph cruising speed" when most well tuned Continentals probably topped out at 110 with a tailwind. And Bentley discouraged buyers from adding radio.

"I'd sell my grandmother to lose another pound from a Lear Jet," vowed Bill Lear, who in his last days was involved with modern steam cars, picking up where the remarkable Doble left off.

Look at a '34 Packard Model 1106 LeBaron sport coupe. The Packard of those years, had they survived into the '50s not run by the GM production men brought in to cost the '35 120, would've anticipated and matched the Bentley Continental, instead of aping dreck like the Olds Fiesta, Buick Skylark, Cadillac Eldorado with the "Caribbean," a stock convertible laden with 200 additional pounds of "sporty" cues.

So, what body style is your 120? Does it already have overdrive?

How could i forget, and thank the continued 100+ heat for staying in the office 'til it dissipates for this epistle: Get a six-volt, 55-amp, positive ground alternator from Jim's Battery Manufacturing, Youngstown, OH (800) 426-7580. No butchering whatsoever. Tell Jim and Dolores that Mike, '47 Super Clipper, Walnut Creek, CA and my late '47 Custom Super-owning friend Hans Edwards, British Columbia, referred you.

Then, use an Optima Red Top 6-volt 800 cold cranking amp battery. Pricey, but got nearly a decade each from my last two, and know of a '41 Cad that managed 14 years. Eight times more resistant to vibration than a standard wet battery, not that this a problem in Packards, no off-gassing, and weigh only 18 lbs.

These last two tips just saved you an easy 55 lbs.

Less of a load for your brakes, shocks, et al.

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