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I'm trying to track down the source of a pretty loud clacking noise. I suspect it's valve related and appears to be coming from the front part of the engine. I removed the valve covers and found that one of the hydraulic lifters seems to be oozing far more oil than its 15 counterparts. The attached photo taken with the engine running shows the suspected hydraulic lifter. Any opinions are welcome.

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Does the noise happen all the time or when the engine is cold? hot? Valve lifter may be defective and you should be able to isolate the noise with a stethescope or a piece of rubber hose. If it's the lifter you will have to remove the head and remove the valve to lift out the assembly. If it's sticking you might try running a can of Seafoam or even a quart of tansmission fluid in the oil for a couple of hundred miles and see if that will clean it up.

It clacks hot or cold. There are no broken springs and all the valves appear to be opening and closing. I think I'll see if I can find some tubing to isolate the location of the noise as you suggest.

JD looking at your pic - maybe its the camera angle but it looks like that valve has only half as much shaft as the other 2 below the bottom spring retainer washer. I realize the other 2 valves are exhaust valves. Do the other intake valves also look like this one. (short shaft)

I just went through the clack clack problem with my 40 but it has solids not hydraulic lifters. mine was a broken spring.
Good Luck keep us posted

RedRon,
You have a sharp eye. I hadn't noticed the difference but you are correct. The intake valves have their springs attached closer to the lifter than do the exhaust valves.

I'm currently debating whether to bite the bullet and pop the head to pull all the lifters out of the engine in order to clean them and verify that they maintain oil pressure, or wait till I can get an appointment with a mechanic and spend $90 an hour to let him do it.

I haven't taken the head off a flathead engine since I was 16 but I am leaning more towards doing it myself since I could re-direct the $90 per hour towards new hydraulic plungers where needed. The darn things run $60-$75 apiece. Well... nobody ever said this hobby was cheap.

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JD, I had the exact same problem with my 356 engine. When I bought my car it had sat for many years without being started. It was very clean and looked like it had been well maintained. It had one lifter that made a terrible unPackard like racket when the engine was hot. If one only is making noise then it is probably not an oil supply issue but most likely something stuck in the plunger assembly. I was advised by a friend who is also operates a cylinder head repair shop to just drive the car a few hundred miles and the noise should go away. In any event I tried several of the recommended elixers like Rislone and auto trans fluid to try and remove whatever was sticking the plunger to no avail but had only driven the car on a few short trips. I bought a rebuilt plunger from Kanter and then removed the head, the valves and the plungers. I took every plunger apart and washed them out and replaced everything. On it's first highway trip the lifter clatter returned after the engine warmed up completely! Disappointed I drove the car the remaining 200 miles to the car show I was attending. The next day the noise did not return and ever since the engine now runs quiet as a Packard should. Long story short is I am not sure that it was the plunger and maybe the lifter body itself was just sticking in it's bore from not being driven for many years. My advice is to be patient and drive the car a few hundred miles and wait and see if it corrects the problem by itself. It took me about 8 hours to remove and reinstall the head and clean the plungers etc. so at $90 per hour shop rate you are looking at some serious money even given that a mechanic is probably faster than my amateur hands. On the other hand if you like tinkering with old car engines like me then it is an enjoyable challenge to do it yourself.

JD Owning these old cars can deffinatly be a drain on the wallet, but it feels so great when you pull up outside of a place and people come out just to look at them. When we broke a valve spring a few months ago, I searched everywhere for a mechanic. After towing it to his shop he said the job was to big for him and that I needed a new engine.
Soooooo we decided to do it ourselves. Turned out to be a $3.50 valve spring. The grandson and myself fixed it. No more mechanics for us - We found out thats the other half of the fun of owning an oldie and a goody. Ya should have seen the look on my grandsons face when he pushed the starter button and it came to life.
Put some miles on it to see if it breaks loose, if not - pull that head - those old flatheads are pretty easy to work on. And if ya get stuck - we're here to walk ya thru it.

I still think I've got a worn plunger/cylinder on the #1 exhaust valve lifter but... It does make sense to drive the car a while to make sure. I've only driven it on to/off of the trailer and once around the block. Soooo, I'll put the valve covers back on, drop the oil pan and clean out the sludge, install an oil filter, re-fill the car with light weight oil and maybe some detergent product and gently drive it a few hundred miles. This will also give me a chance to see if it overheats or has some other things that may need taking care of. If the 'clack' doesn't go away then I'll pop the head myself and test the lifters replacing any that don't pass muster.

The 41-49 Engine Service Manual on this website has been an enormous help in seeing what the hydraulic lifters look like out of the engine and the methods used to check them out.

Nice to see that the Service manual has been valuable to you.

Be carefull when using detergent gasoline in an older engine as it can sometimes free up crud in the engine that can then shift to somewhere nasty in the engine (like a bearing). The fuel filters on the Packard are bypass style, so not everything gets trapped by the filter.

Also when you drop the pan, make sure to clean out the pickup screen.

Ok, I've got the oil pan off, cleaned out and ready to be re-installed. Now, can someone give me the magic incantation to get the pitman arm ball and idler arm ball out of the steering cross-rod assembly? In the past, I've disassembled the cross-rod on my '41 limousine without any problem. The ball is in a keyhole shaped slot so when the adjusting plug is removed, the ball slides to the larger opening and comes right out.

On the '50 however, after removing the adjusting plug and the outside half of the ball seat, the ball stays in the cross-rod no matter how much I push, pull, squeeze, wiggle, rotate, twist, and swear. It isn't critical that I get it all disassembled, but I would really like to get the 57 years worth of black goo out and replace it with clean grease.