Packard Forum Index » General

Question: Did the Packard-build Merlin engines that were fitted to the P-51s and P-40s have British or U.S. fastener specifications?

Henry Ford, like a great many others, was caught up in the America Fist movement which wanted no direct involvement in the war in Europe. There were some other factors affecting his decision, but there is no need get into them here. Still, his English division made engines for Rolls Royce. Let's not forget that he produced a huge number of B-24s in his plant here; one an hour after the operation got going.

JWL

Quote:

Henry, A movie worth watching is: "They Were Expendable". Made during the war and tells about a navy patrol squadron in the Philippens right after Pear Harbor. The stars of the show are the Packard powered PT boats. It gets shown on TCM from time to time.

JWL

September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and on September 3, 1939 England declared war on Germany. RR asked Ford (US) to help them build Merlin engines in early 1940 - well before the US entered WWII. Henry Ford wanted to claim neutrality and said no to helping any foreigners, including England. However, that all changed when the US entered the war in December 1941. Then Willow Run started building B-24s at the rate of one and hour.

As to the nuts and bolts, whether British Standard or SAE, additional proof comes from Robert Neal's book, Master Motor Builders
file:///C:/Users/Roger/Downloads/Packard%20as%20Aero-Engine%20Builder%20(1).pdf

Everyone, do yourself a favor and download it for easier reading.

Timeline:
? June 24, 1940: Packard accepts proposal to build the RR Merlin engine
? August 1940: Packard is still trying to assemble all the drawings, parts and engines it can tear down and examine and have usable blueprints
? March 20, 1941: Original goal to have a hand-made engine - actual date: July 1941
? July 20, 1941: Original goal to have assembly line running - actual date: October 1941

From a dead start to engines of an assembly line - 16 months! And that included all the re-measuring of parts, constructing Building #22, the assembly line and test cell facilities.

Merlin engines were run-in for 12.5 hours, then torn down, inspected, re-assembled and run again for 1 hour before being packaged up for shipment. Each day Packard went through 74,800 gallons of aviation gas just testing the engines.

Attach file:

---

  (35.28 KB)


  (25.01 KB)

<i>"The Perfect Storm of all those reasons for Packard's demise could not have been more complicated. No wonder we're still talking about it sixty years later. But remember, 72 years ago men bet their lives on it.</i>"

Indeed! It was an amazing series of events. I have long been of the opinion that Packard would have pulled out of it but for the loss of those defense contracts. I think that had the contracts not been yanked, Nance would have received funding for the '57s. It's such a shame that they came so close to pulling it off but were forced to close. I've always wondered why they didn't negotiate retention of the engine and transmission building at Utica as part of the Curtiss-Wright deal. Studebaker would have been much more competitive with the easily expandable Packard V-8. The Studebaker V-8 was a great little engine, but that was its problem: it was little. The bore centers were too close for safe expansion beyond 289 cubic inches. OTOH, the Packard V-8 for '57 would have been 440 cubic inches. I've never seen anything that indicated that they tried to get the concession from Curtiss-Wright to continue engine production at Utica.

<i>"September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and on September 3, 1939 England declared war on Germany ... etc.</i>

Excellent additional insight, Roger! Thank you!

I feel if it wasn't for Packard, we'd all be speaking German! (And possibly Japanese also).

I started a new thread here at PackardInfo - I neglected last week to post the link to my blog post marking the passing of James Ward Packard in 1928:
56packardman.com/2017/03/21/gear-head-tuesday-james-ward-packard-1863-1928/

"I feel if it wasn't for Packard, we'd all be speaking German! (And possibly Japanese also)."

... hee hee ... Dr. Morbius, there is no doubt Packard helped prevent that!

I found this thread interesting. Knowing that Packard stopped car production in March of '42 to build the Merlin engines and also suspect they were building the marine engines for the PT boats.

But all this brought about more thoughts and questions. How did the war effect the number of males working for Packard? Did they hire women, we hear all about "Rosie, the riveter" but what about Martha the mechanic? Did Packard hire a significant amount of women to cover the shortages in their workforce?

Once the tooling was done to Whitworth threads instead of SAE, I am thinking it would have been easier to train the women in metric instead of the men to change from SAE. I know I've become frustrated working on mixed thread components, like my Chevy Suburban.

Is there any information about the Packard workforce during WWII?

I wonder how long it took to make and retool the factories?

What did Briggs Body do, stop production all together?

Thanks for bring this up.

<i>"I found this thread interesting. Knowing that Packard stopped car production in March of '42 to build the Merlin engines and also suspect they were building the marine engines for the PT boats.

But all this brought about more thoughts and questions. How did the war effect the number of males working for Packard? Did they hire women, we hear all about "Rosie, the riveter" but what about Martha the mechanic? Did Packard hire a significant amount of women to cover the shortages in their workforce? "</i>

Watch the videos at my blog post. Many of your questions are answered.

Yes, the PT boats were exclusively Packard-powered. Three Packard Marine V-12s in each PT boat.

56packardman.com/2015/12/08/gear-head-tuesday-packard-v-12-powered-pt-boats/