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I just finished replacing all of the wood in the body of my Phaeton. It sat in storage in the previous owner's garage in Hawaii for 40 years and the termites had their way with it. If anyone is in need of any new wood for their 1929 Phaeton, I made templates for all of the pieces and can pretty easily make additional pieces.

Jim Wayman
640 Phaeton

And they said that it can't be done. I am rebuilding the wood on my 526, (or will resume when back in the country), and the response that most give, is that it is just not worth it.

Patience and a bandsaw my friend, patience and a bandsaw

Ray,

Kygryzstan

I think the response was that if you have to pay to have it done on a sedan, you'd be entirely upside down in the value of the car vs the amount of money you have in it. It barely makes monetary sense to have it done on a phaeton. If you're doing it yourself, that's a different story and I applaud you all who can do it.

Quote:Jim.

A very generous offer. Would the wood or some pieces of it fit other models or years? Not that I require any for my '41 Coupe, but thinking of others who may be in need. And what about the long term outlook for the templates? Could these go to a Packard club in due course, so a source of parts could be maintained for future generations?

I don't know what other models would use the same parts other than all 6th series Phaetons. I'm surprised to hear that it might be prohibitively expensive. I know that a friend had a set made for his 633 Phaeton and that it cost him about $6,000 for the set without assembly. I did the assembly for him as a favor and for the learning curve. I have found that, if you have the tools and patience and understand how the cars were assembled, it is not too difficult. The only dimension that is given in any of the literature I have is the dimension of the widest part where the top bows attach. What I have found is that it is very important to take measurements of the original width of the sills at the points where the uprights fasten. You then need to use the body pieces that go below the doors as the measurement of how far apart the uprights go. If you do all of that correctly, the doors should fit with good gaps and line up properly. The hardest piece is the part that goes in the cowl. I would imagine that a closed car would be much more daunting given the difficulty of accessing everything without the body taken completely apart. Any way, it has been a fun experience and I would be happy to help anyone with a similar car.

Jim Wayman
640 Phaeton

The 640 Phaeton wood will exactly fit a 633 Phaeton and a 443 phaeton. The only difference from the 1928 443 to the 6th series is that the firewall is flush on one and recessed on the 1929 6th series cars (necessary to squeeze the 8 cylinder engine in lieu of the former 6 cylinder in the SWB cars). The cowl wood and front doors is the same on all open cars to 6th series notwithstanding the different method of attaching the skins to the frame on the earler series where the skin was crimped over a flat piece of metal tacked to the wood on 3 sides. Packard used 2 different door pillars narrow and wide (SWB V LWB)so door pillar woood varies. Rear doors are different. SWB cars had a door that closed around the rear fender whereas the LWB had square rear doors with the wood being different. The rear bodies had minimal wood as most of the base is metal framed.

The 645 cars did not use Packard bodies - rather they were Dietrich and totally different to the 443,526,533,633 and 640 bodies (NOTE Packard did NOT offer a phaeton on the 626 other than the speedster of which none exist - that I know). I may be interested in some body wood for my 640 phaeton.

speedster1930@hotmail.com

Quote:G'day speedster1930,
Good to have another Aussie on PackardInfo. Have to ask, are you a member of PACA? (Packard Automobile Club of Australia) And I invite you to include your 640 phaeton in the Packard Owner's Registry here, together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired it?

No, not a member of PACA - was years ago. The 640 came from Canada and was LHD - now RHD and body is from 2 cars - front V Good, rear sad but copyable. Have other Packards including 645's, 740's, a 745 and a 734 Speedster Victoria -same as the one in the Nethercutt collection. Have a mass of 5th series 6 parts and 633 standard eight that I'd like to dispose of.

Quote:Quite a Packard fleet and in that case I better revise my request so they are all included in the Packard Owner's Registry here, together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired them?

Quote:Forgive my ignorance here, full of Packard enthusiasm but lacking in knowledge, would any of these parts be likely to fit a 333 6 cylinder, specifically an engine block?

Quote:
Two of the 1929 speedsters exist. A roadster in the Henry Ford Museum. (There's some controversy as to what it actually is. Build records indicate "special".) There is an authentic phaeton in Minnesota. The owner passed away several year ago, and from what I understand, it hasn't seen the light of day since. It was supposedly restored just before he died. I've never even seen a photo of it, but it supposedly is a "real" speedster.