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Quote:HPH,

Very unlikely, any decent '37 Super Eight engine would command a good price.

Good point Mal. I was thinking 47, not 37.

I'd imagine 37 engines would not be very common out there.

Good point on the bearings. I was expecting to find inserts, but it definitely has babbitt bearings. The engine serial is 232009 according to the Registry entry by the previous owner. Is this a correct number for a '37 Super?

All the rods are poured?

Those rod bearings are flanged on both sides to provide proper clearance to the crank cheeks and they have never been plentiful and even as far back as the the 80s outright challenging to find. Perhaps a rebuilder of your engine, unable to find bearings, used 1934 or earlier rods and reverted back to poured bearings?

Stranger things have been found when opening up old engines.

definitely a surprise. My guess is someone had the original shells "rebabitted". Strange, but until the bearings were reproduced (and expensive) there weren't too many options...

Can't say if all the bearings are poured; only #8 cap was crumbled. There was quite a bit of the 'flange' material in the pan. I just figured that between the bearing problem and the leaking coolant the engine was going to be expensive.Perhaps the next owner will be up to the task!

No, Ed, that is not a good motor #.
For 1937 the range is 395,000-403,000.

'37, '38, and '39 Super 8 engines are very hard to find. From what we've had to deal with on my dad's '38 Super we found that 1938 was the year that had the most problems with cracked blocks. Something about the metallurgy of that year, or poor water circulation. And the '39 engine is different enough that some parts can't be easily swapped between the years.

On the second engine that we rebuilt for my dad's car, we found that corrosion was the killer. The donor block had been fully disassembled, dipped and cleaned, and machined. The pistons had to be slightly bored. The corrosion inside the water jacket left thin spots that couldn't be seen. On the first start after installing the engine those thin spots blew open. #2 cylinder had a leak in the wall, and there was a leak under one of the valve seats on #6.

Our third block was in much better shape. We'll be installing the engine again this weekend, and we are hoping for the best.

I agree with what was said earlier about considering putting in a 288. They are much easier to find, plenty of parts, and still maintains the original feel.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure the rods on my dad's car were restored with babbit. The engine had previously been opened, prior to us having the car. But no idea when that was. If these engines were supposed to have bearings, then someone in the past apparently had to do babbit instead. No idea why.

-Kevin

On the subject of insert rod bearings, one method that works is to rebuild the rod to use a modern insert bearing. This involves reworking the big end to do away with the babbitted collars by welding and then machining the rods for correct end play as is the modern practice.

Packard was using the collared bearings I assume because that was a carryover from the babbitt engines.

Another work around that I haven't heard being done for years was fitting a Chrysler slant six thrust main bearing insert into those rods.

These methods are expensive, but they work.

Years ago, I was sitting at the bar with John Cavalero and Walter Wary. We were chatting over booze. Johns says "All Packards run hot, the only Packard that doesn't is your car (Walter's low mileage 343), I can be boiling over, but you'll be driving away." John's car (840) was pulled out of swamp, so the block had corrosion loss. It ran and ran like that because John didn't beat on it, but there is a limit.

I think that if I were doing a post-war engine that I'd opt for a 327. Nearly as ubiquitous as the 288 and a bit more @$.