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Hi all and thanks for reading my blog.

I bought this packard about 3 weeks ago off ebay looking to make it my daily driver in the summer months. The car is in pretty good shap overall and even made the 1 hour drive to my house. The first stage of my project is the rust repair to the rockers and rear quarter panels. I have includeded some photos of her cancer that needs the full cut and patch treatment.

Here is the link to my car in the Registry.
packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/registry/index.php?Action=view&ID=1133

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HJi, this weekend I visited a wrecking yard in Fresno California for 1940 Packard parts. The yard contains a 1951 200 with good sheet metal, and hood ortament.
If you are interested call Steve the owner, at 559-352-1407 he probably would cut and ship the rust free sheet metal you need.
The yard also contains a 1939 super? 8 4dr, body complete except for the front clip. The rear bumper and guards are intact also.
The interior still contains all the window trim, including the extra pieces below each window that appear to be wood or wood grained, ash trays excetra. The rear fenders have 3 stainless spears? So the car may be some type of custom?
Both cars contain many usable of parts. Surface rust is all i could determine.
Hope you can use the 200 sheet metal or some other parts from the car.
John

The rocker panels are the only really bad sheet metal that needs replaced. I am planning on using patches for most of the other spots. I won't know for sure until I clean the rust and cut out the bad metal. Thanks for the contact I might call him about the hood ortament, mine is MIA.

You got to love 50's cars.

I went to pull my steering wheel off yesterday and come to my surprise it didn't want to come off. It must not have been off in a while. I actually bent my puller trying to get it off the first time (pictures of the bent bolts below). I barrowed a friends of mines which fit much better and with about 5 turns more than I really wanted to go it popped off. I finished pulling the radio and ash tray out and then moved to starting rust repair on the drivers side rear quater panel. The side I thought was going to the worst of the too. Much like all the cars there was plenty of filler around the wheel wells (pictures below). Tomorrow I am hopefull I can get the bad metal cut out and start working on some of the replacement panels.

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I have an almost perfect 1951 "goddess of speed" (airplane) hood ornament sitting on my shelf if you can't find one from the wrecking yard. It was rechromed about 10 years ago and was only on the car for a year or so.

I have the same model car as yours, but not near as much rust. Good luck with banishing the tinworm.

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Dave thanks for the offer but I don't know if I am going to use a hood ornament. I do like the look of the stainless strip that the previous owner installed. I am waiting to see which way I go with the build keep it all original or customize it. If I go customize route then I would keep the stainless strip.

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I haven't done much with the car lately but I am looking for some ideas on rust converters.

What have some people used and what did you think about them? I am looking for good and bad.