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Hello All

This is a revised entry due to some issues that came up with the car, not website related.

A little history.

The car was purchased by my father in 1975. The car at the time was missing several pieces and had an engine that ran, sort of.

I remember as a kid we would go down to the local dairy queen and always take the Packard. At the time, I always enjoyed the "weeee" sensation as we went down the hill. The other always lingering memory was the distinct "old car" smell.

Now that I am older and think of things a little differently, My father was secretly using us to get ice cream as a bonus to keeping the car running. Allow me to explain. On the way there you started out at the top of a big hill, went down to the bottom, and climbed back up the other side. Coming home was always the same method. So should the car decide not to run properly, we could get plenty of momentum to pop start if need be. Sneaky Sneaky.

Moving on, Dad continued to work on the car up until around 2007, including having the engine rebuilt. Thankfully dad had found a skeleton spare engine in Ohio back in the 80's and had found a local guru to rebuild the engine.

Well Dad retired in 2007 and decided he was tired of playing with the car and sold the car to me.

Believe me, I had no idea how difficult a 1933 Packard 1001 Sedan is to restore. Generarlly speaking, a gorgeous year, but low production. Low production makes geting replacement parts both impossible and expensive as heck.

Since purchasing the car, I promptly set about restoring the car to the best of my ability and pocketbook. However, due to space constraints, and my ability to drag things out, I sent the car down to the gentlemen who re-built the engine to have the chassis restored.

The body was removed, all parts removed, chassis sandblasted and repainted. Chassis put back together. Lots of wood rot and rust was repaired, and new bijur lines and fittings installed.

Recent work involved removing the radiator and having that recored, and now I am in the process of re-installing the radiator.

Challenges range from me wanting to sell the friggin thing, to thinking what it would be like to take my own children to dairy queen someday.

Some interesting challenges included the state of Illinois. It is becoming impossible to license anything in this state. I had the original title to the car, and attempted to register it. Well the state recently passed a mandate that requires the state to inspect all cars older than 1947. The only problem is that they choose not to notify the owners. Combine that with explaining the situation where the engine number, theft proof number, and serial tag number not matching, and dealing with a state that thinks the engine number is supposed to be on the serial tag, a headache was created. Solving the problem involves taking the car to them and having them inspect it.

Once I got that issue resolved, only 8 months, the state informed me that I owed several thousand dollars in sales tax as they felt the car was worth in excess of $70,000. I offered to sell it to them for $25,000, they didn't get the joke. So I had to have the car appraised to shut them up.

That finally resolved, I resumed work on the car.

Below are some photos along the way, starting with the very first known photo of the car.

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Here are some more recent photos of what the car looked like when I acquired it.

At some point, 40's-60's someone decided to hand paint the car with what appears to be house paint. It doesn't look the greatest, but definitely protected the car.

Can anyone notice the glaring oddity in the last photo?

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And you're not even in California. I thought we had the corner on tax gouging because we're broke. Nevertheless, it will be great when you get it done--poorer but happier at any rate.

HH56,

I used to think that california was bad, then I realized how broke the state of Illinois is. The really interesting part is that the law was enacted and the secretary of state police had really no warning, also they were not allowed to hire more workers. More or less, all applications go through 2 people for the entire state of Illinois. Way to go politicians!

Quote:Is it the roof? Looks one piece without the insert?

Or, how about the lack of a front bumper?

Skotty...ouch!!! Thankfully I do have the front bumper, and all the lacking sheetmetal.

Mal,

Nailed It!

I am a little perplexed on how/when this was done. The headliner appears original and not modified, other that missing the sun visors. Sun visors were ususally removed due to the piano hinge that held them up would relax and allow the visor to fall down all the time. If anyone has one, please contact me.

Regardless, I believe the insert is lead soldered in, but not sure. If so, the original channel should still be there. Maybe Mal could supply some photos of Wade's channel, if the insert is not in already.

So here is a poll, should I remove the metal insert and put in the correct one, or leave it alone?

Here are some photos showing the wood rot on the front sills. Some of the rust can also be seen.

Also the body is off of the chassis. Don't worry, the straps are not holding the body up, only providing balance and "just-in-case the saw horses fail" support.

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Now comes the ugly, really ugly. I could have strangled the person who butchered the bijur system. Only about half of the fittings where still there, and several lines were just cut. The nerve!!!

On a good note, Owen Dyneto is not the only one with a kelch heater!! Not sure if mine works, its pretty rough! But I do have the floor vents that connect to it.

Then we have the really pretty pics.

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And here are some photos from the summer when the car came home.

There are still some mechanical, electrical problems to work out.

The brakes need a full adjustment, not easy to do alone. Mechanical brakes work great when they are adjusted correctly. This is something that will wait for a bit.

The fun part about the test drive was that after we got up to about 15 mph, the vacuum pressure would kick in and the front drivers wheel brake would engage. Almost sidescraped a neighbors car!!

Next time I will find an empty parking lot.

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