The heat riser valve was indeed the cause of overheating in my '51 as well. I couldn't find a Packard spring, so I'm trying to craft a Chevrolet spring to work.

My '51 2462 is about as original as possible, and the lettering, or what was left of it, was red. I used a fingernail polish to fill in the letters. If your trunk is in the open condition, it holds the emblem fairly level, and the fingernail polish did a pretty good job.

I had the same deposit on my '48. I always guessed it was some aftermarket undercoating. Kudos to my wife for endlessly scraping the front undercarriage with a rounded end 5" spatula while I worked on other things. She probably filled up a quart bucket with the debris.

Well, the right side window is marginally better than mine, but I'd still be interested in the right side door sills.

I guess my 200 isn't in quite the shape that I pretend it is!

I'd be interested in:
(1) Right side window glass
(2) Horns
(3) Interior right side air vent cover (if such a thing exists).
(4) Radio
(5) Heat riser valve spring

Thanks!

I restored it to a positive ground, and the difference was pretty remarkable. It runs infinitely better than it did before.

Thanks guys!

I recently purchased a 1951 200 from a nearby used car dealership. The car ran, albeit poorly, and I've only now started working on it. The car only had one owner prior to the dealer, and the dealer purchased the car from an estate sale. The dealer said that he had just put in a new 6 VDC battery in the car the day before.

Today, I noticed that battery was installed with a negative ground. It's still a 6 volt system, and it appears that all electrical components are original.

My question is how could the car have been running? It appeared that the coil was wired up for a conventional positive ground, although I had removed the coil and distributor prior to seeing if they were wired correctly. Also, the fuel and temp gauges and lights all also seemed to be functioning.