Your welcome..thanks for the efforts for the forum. Yes, they are a great body style. It looks as if your mate is coming along on his. Will be great to see it finished!

Thanks much for that info.. I went to the web site and see the silicone version. SO, I take it I just take the plate off the diaphram holder attached to the firewall and install it. Ill try that first and see if it stops the issue. Otherwise, I understand that I have to disassemble the actual selector valve to replace to other ring. Any guidance for that procedure if it becomes necessary?

Hi Gents..

A while back I had a problem with a miss in my 1101 and you were all helpful. At that time someone had a chat with me about the brake selector on this car. Well, now I have this "hissing" sound around this module. I feel like it is some kind of vacuum leak. On the back side of the module that sits on the firewall there seems to be a relief valve of some kind, almost looks like a cap to a tire stem that if I manipulate it make the noise different. I was told, I believe, that there is some kind of paper in this thing that often breaks. Anyhow, I might have it wrong. Wondering if anyone has any ideas if im on the right track and if so what is the process for repairing the module.
Thanks!

Gents...just a note to say thank you for all of your suggestions. After removing the distributor, disassembling and inspecting it, setting the points, checking and cleaning the cap and wires and finally finding a rivet from the face plate of the coil holder penetrating one of the coils I am happy to report that the car now runs like it should. While still not as smooth as I like, no more high speed miss!

I'm now moving on to other issues that Dave was kind enough to make suggestions on over the phone to me. I'm confident that those too will be sorted out in due time.

Many thanks to all of you!

Thanks for the info on the "snapping sound". I just don't understand why when I switched the coils around I never heard the sound. Your ideas make sense though. Again, I am assuming that one of the coils is bad. Which brings me to this question.

How do you bench test a 6 volt coil. I have them off and out. Which by the way, I want to offer up this bit of info. When attempting to remove one of them, I found that whoever had riveted the Northeast face place to the base of the coils holder had riveted the face plate through it and into the coil. This is the one I believe failed. Is this proper and/or could this cause it to fail?

Secondly, I read where if you test a coil on the bench from side terminal to side terminal I should see a resistance level of .75 to .81 ohms. I am getting 1.0 on both coil tests. It also says that I should get a reading of 10,000 to 11,000 ohms when testing between either side terminal and the center high tension terminal. I get nothing.

So, I have ordered a standard 6 volt coil to try in each position tomorrow morning. I understand I am looking at 350-550 dollars for two new coils? If anyone has any idea of how to have them rebuilt or where to go to get them replaced it would be much appreciated.

As for the cap. Yes, you are right. I am praying that it isn't the cap as I was told if I can find one im looking at probably another 600 dollars. I removed the cap today and checked the continuity through each spark plug wire to each terminal in the cap and all were good. I do notice on the #3 terminal, (one of the problem cylinders) that the plastic below the terminal inside the cap seems to be scraped away a bit? Does this mean I possibly have a wobbly distributor shaft? Neither I or the mechanic working on it with me seem to think there is excessive play. But why would I be seeing this scraping on a couple of terminals? Can anyone give me some guidance as to what constitutes a bad distributor cap? Further, anyone have an idea where to look for a new one if I should have to replace it?

I am going to pull the distributor in the morning and set the points per Dave's instructions. When I have it out, is there any good indicators as to how to check for excessive wear on the shaft. Anything else I should be checking for when I get it out. Most importantly, any guidance as to what to do or not to do when removing it?

So gentlemen a request for further help with this sick 1934 club sedan. I have taken all of your suggestions and gone through them from swapping plugs, checking the rotor cap, swapping plug wires and checking the vacuum. I brought in another gentleman to help me with diagnosing the miss in the engine. One of the first things he did was pull the plug wire from the far rear cylinder while the car was running and there was a definite miss. Interestingly, there was a loud "snapping" noise, like one that you would expect from a plug wire being held close to a grounding source. He continued to pull the plug wires sequentially and the third cylinder from the rear had no snapping sound and made no difference in the run of the car. This was the same on the number three cylinder from the front. Since we were concerned that the plugs might be misswired, we reviewed the plug schematic and each plug wire corresponded to the numbers on the distributor cap. We then followed the instructions on setting the dual points finding one set of points with a much larger gap than the 18-20 recommended. Reset it and then fired the car back up and there was no appreciable difference. In fact might have run a bit worse after resetting the points. We carefully looked at both the #3 and #6 positions inside the cap and they looked fine. Checked the compression on the number three and 6 both were good. SO we moved to the coils, swapping the two around as we followed the recommended procedure to ground them and see what kind of spark we got. The front coil was very strong while the rear was very week. After swapping the coils figuring that this might account for the number 3 and number 6 cylinders not functioning, they STILL were not firing. What was interesting is that when we began to sequentially pull the plug wires again after the coil swap from each spark plug as we did previously, there was a slight difference in the run of the car on the 3 and 6 cylinders but NONE of the wires created the "snapping" sound again.

So here is the question:

What is that "snapping" sound we were hearing that once we swapped coils disappeared all together. Was a coil grounding out somewhere else originally?. It was a very strong electrical sound that could be heard over the idle of the engine. Why did it go away when the coils were swapped.

Second, I had the points swapped out by another mechanic several months ago. They are a mod from Max Merritt. When I review old Packard materials about setting the point, I see that they utilized a protractor of sorts attached to the side of the distributor. Can a person get one? Is it needed? Is there another process for setting the points accurately without it? If the car runs down the road and missess, could the points be so off as to cause several cylinders to be dead?

Since I purchased this car it has always smelled as if running very rich. I am now assuming it is because i have more than two cylinders that are not firing or misfiring and sending unburnt fuel out the tail pipe. I often see wet black soot coming out the pipe onto the ground. No water in the oil that i can see.

Finally, can anyone direct me to a page where I can read how to walk through how to time this engine. I purchased the car after a major rebuild by the previous owner. This missing has been an ongong problem. I have a concern that there is a possibility that the distributor was reinstalled into the car incorrectly. I say this as for it to run half way well the distributor is turned such that the clip on the left side of the distributor cap is rubbing against the side of the rear coil. I have looked at alot of pictures of this engine to see if that is accurate and cannot tell. Seems odd that a clip would rub against the rear coil if the distributor was installed correctly.

I will definitely include it in the registry if I can ever get my head out from under the hood! Its on my list. Thanks!

Thanks gentlemen for all of the great suggestions so quickly! I will begin following your instructions and see where it leads me. Owens suggestion about the vacuum brought to mind another point. When I advance the accelerator quickly I occasionally get blowback or popping sound through the carb. Would that be suggestive of a vacuum leak? Your right in that the car idles, starts and runs rough. It is the poor accleration and the fact that it occasionally wants to die that makes me wonder if its more than just poor fire to one cylinder. Further, it smells very rich when running. I assumed again that one cylinder intermittently not firing could be the cause of the rich smell but could a vacuum leak do the same? Regardless, Ill check for a vacuum issue as well as run through the distributor and coil suggestions. Thanks again for the help.

So this is my first posting and I am in need of some advice on where to begin searching for the problem I am having with my standard 8. I recently had it in a garage where a electric fuel pump was removed and a rebuilt fuel pump was installed in addition to a rebuilt Stromberg carburetor. As well, the automatic choke was worked on and the valves were adjusted. When I purchased the car several years ago it had gone through a rebuild and I reviewed the receipts to verify. The care supposedly had only about 100 miles or so on it when I purchased it. When I took it out of the last maintenance event the car ran well but still had a very slight miss. Got it home. It sat for a few weeks. Went to start it and it ran rough and did not want to stay running. I thought it was the choke not opening but even fully open the car runs rough. When I rev the engine it bogs down. Began by checking all the wires, cap, coil wires to make sure they were tight. Systematically began removing the plug wires and found that the third cylinder from the front appeared to not be firing. Checked the plug and wire both are good. Soooo....Im assuming its in the distributor or coils or the advance is not working properly. (Possible short somewhere?) Car starts and idles ok, slight miss. Spark to that third cylinder seems weak and intermittent by comparison to the others? I would appreciate any input. I've read that a vacuum leak could be an issue as well. I've also read that a service bulletin by Packard indicated the distributor should be grounded to avoid weak spark. Would I see weak spark in all of the cylinders or just one. If its just one cylinder, is it possible the mechanic didn't set the points correctly? He installed a dual point Chrysler mod I believe from Max Merritt... Sorry, know this is a lot but want to give as much info as possible. Thanks.