Leeedy makes good points. This wonderful site is for those admiring, owning, rebuilding, servicing Packards. We should ban crapola like the above, rendered by and for twits with no education, or curiosity about the genuine article. By giving butcherers a forum, we imbue their cluelessness with credibility.

This is how we disappear. We contribute to our own demise.

Pipesarge, why not install a (Packard) 327 instead? Bolt in proposition, more power. While you're at it, get a four-barreled 327 from a 1953 or '54 donor. The 288 is a good mill, and will wind, but lacks even a two-barreled 327's oomph. Packard service departments made such changes, just as if you brought in a prewar 120 needing an engine, they'd replace the 282 with a 288.

While Olds, Cad, Chrysler, even Studebaker about to unveil or working on new ohv V-8s, a waning Packard addicted to fat War II defense contracts was more interested in more lucrative, less hassle govt. and jet engine business, so instead only offered a pair of revisions of their 1935 One Twenty engine. The 288 and 327 were excellent flathead straight eights for the benefit of today's hobbyists, if diminishing Packard's stature in their day. Take advantage of that situation.

Kevin, meant to ask that, it being my surmise. But i bow to others here.

T h a t was my initial guess. Thank you, Dr. Miller. BTW, your Speedwell Garage YouTubes are terrific.

primarily serve? Or are the two idle adjustment screws only for the barrel above each in the carb?

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Right. HH56 always speaks the truth.

Regarding the mechanical liftered engines, a wise auld mechanic's practice to prevent valve scorching was to use a go/no-go gauge, set intake at .007-.009, exhaust .010-.012 engine warm and running, or at least thoroughly warmed. Packard's focus on smoothness usually second-tiered performance, not that well-tuned Packards were slugs. Howard Reed, a Buick alum, tried to convince Packard mgmt. to adopt not just overhead valves, but overhead cam. He was told the additional noise would be unseemly. Read: Reduce Packard's profit margins.

Some buffs forget that Packard's raison d' etre was not to produce toys for us 70, 80, 90 years hence, but return profit. Before the war, Packard was the second most widely held automotive stock after only GM. (Ford didn't go public 'til New Year's Day, 1956.) Packard's legal counsel, Henry E. Bodman, rewrote the Merlin contract so that it became the basis of government agreements for years to come. Packard's war work was not altruism, but for profit. Just as it was not the "Packard Merlin," but the Rolls-Royce Merlin for which Packard hired a phalanx of draftsman at taxpayer expense to redraw the plans suitable for Detroit production. Britain produced twice the Merlins as Packard, and each series either side of the Atlantic equally good.
The PT boats were not as good as the German Diesel schnellboots, or fast boats, and used the more dangerous gasoline at sea simply as we never had a gas shortage and it simplified logistics. Gas rationing was to conserve vital rubber.

Perspective aids discussion of nuts and bolts; why as well as how.

Pinhole leak in carburetor float?

Spence, never apologize for being new to something. We all are new to something. Einstein remarked, "The more I know, the more I realize how little I know." Sounds like the early eight, like yours, doesn't have a block plug else you'd surely have seen it by now. While the access plates off, a lifelong Packard savant suggests putting a coil spring sorta brush on an electric drill and cleaning out as much of that scale as you can reach.

Several on this thread extol Evaporust, so must have merit. I did mine years ago with washing soda and kerosene and it's remained clean ever since.

Another friend had a nice '35 1201 (not 120) coupe-roadster, and i believe its water pump like yours had a packing gland requiring periodic grease. Some use boat grease. Yours should be this type. Others will better know. Cadillac was still using 1930-type water pump into the '40s, just as Buick babbitt bearings through '48.

Don't panic over using tap water. Some municipal systems are very good, principally greater NYC, which receives snow melt from the Adirondacks, and EBMUD (East Bay Municipal Utility District) serving much of us to the east of San Francisco in the lame overpriced, overrated, overpopulated corporate 'burbs. EBMUD receives snow melt from the Sierras. The real mistake is distilled water, which is ion hungry, so leaches minerals, like lead, tin, from your radiator and system. Do see the tech link on www.norosion.com. Everything you need to know about cooling system health.

You're doing fine as is. You've got a swell auld calash.

O'Dave -- While you're in the neighborhood, spray the background gloss white. A Cord friend simply lined his with the shiny side of aluminum foil, but we learned that gloss white better reflects bulbs than that or silver or chrome paint.
Make sure your grounds are good.

Sounds like you're A-OK, the others concur. Gorgeous barouche, yours, and nice to see the wheels painted body color, not chromed like so many heathens do. On a clean-limned automobile, chrome should be at most like the touch of seasoning a learned chef might use.

The only thing i might tender is next oil change switch to full synthetic. Belay the concerns decades ago about about synthetic oil getting past rear main seal, et al. That was caused early on by esters, which are no longer in any synthetic motor oil. That, and many down homers like to blame anything new and better for their existing problems.

I long used Kendall GT1 10W/30 semi-synthetic but after copious reading, deduce the sole drawback of full synthetic is its price. However, that was alleviated by the wonderful JoAnne Teel at Kendall Motor Oils, below. Full synthetic for the price of conventional oil. Free shipping at that!

454 South Main Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701
(855) 899-7467
jmessina@petroleumservicecompany.com

Full synthetic may be overkill, but that sums most of Packard's engineering at least into the '40s. Please tell JoAnne that Mike Scott, '47 Packard Super Clipper, Walnut Creek, CA referred you. Good folks, and tho' all major brands motor oil on par according to Consumer Reports' and other rigorous testing, Kendall's as good or a wee smidgen better than any of them.