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Henry, cam grind was performed here in Melbourne by Wade Cams and is very similar to original profile, so the stock springs should be OK. Many thanks... Warren

Thanks Wayne and John for your responses to Hank's questions.

And now for something completely different, back to the 2012 Expedition Across Australia. The Expedition finished today and I was able to be there to see David and Don drive across the line.

A few pic's below, but many more in this Picasa album link. Some captioned, some not.

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Thursday 5th April 2012

Dropped in at the workshop this morning and found Wade tinkering with Big Red, the carb in particular. Big Red has been hard to start when hot so Wade was taking the opportunity to go over the carb and choke set-up. Wade had arrived back on Tuesday from his sojourn in New Zealand which included the Northern Exposure Rally. Used mate Brian's '46 Clipper which performed flawlessly. Left Wade to it but will be back on Tuesday, after the Easter break.

And a link to an article in todays Sydney Morning Herald about the 2012 Expedition Across Australia.

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A whole swag of pic's appeared today in the Drop Box of Expedition Photo's. By some miracle, the thumbs hit the right keys by chance, I managed to import them into an uncaptioned Picasa Album.

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Tuesday 10th April 2012

Just a quick drop in at the workshop. Wade was servicing his Holden Ute, need to keep it up to spec for chasing Packard parts and such. Couple of pic's, below, of the tangible evidence of Wade and Gina's participation in the Northen Exposure Rally. Will need to find a place to mount the badge!

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Hello Mal, from Wade's Altnerate Workshop. Today Wade took his mobile workshop to Appin to work on Junior's no spark problem. After adjusting the timing and the float in the carburetta Junior finally came to life. More fine tuning and Junior was taken for a test run. Finally Junior is on the road again! Big thanx to Wade for making the trip down to Appin. Cheers Appin's partner ( Annet ).

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That's great Annet, for the update and the pic's, they leave mine for dead! Good to know that Junior has recovered from his ailments and is up and running again.

Annet, should have also said it's always good to have another Aussie onboard PackardInfo. And if that dream of an early 30's roadster ever turns into metal don't forget to include it in the Packard Owner's Registry.

Monday 16th April 2012

Spent some time at the workshop. Wade had an Auto-Lite Generator from John, for Junior, he'd picked up on Saturday after he'd brought Junior back to life. John wants to replace the Chrysler generator presently on Junior with this one he'd bought off eBay. Only trouble is the pulley and cooling blades are very bent. A look on the shelf found another pulley and blades, and although not the same can probably be made to fit, but that'll be a job for another day.

First thing though, that Wade wanted to do, was take the bearings and other parts for a water pump over to David at Anglade Engineering. Some months back Wade had rebuilt a water pump for a 426 for a guy at Tamworth. There was also a second pump but it's body had split in half which Dave now had had welded up, had machined, had made a sleeve for the new bearings, had made a new shaft and was now ready for the final machining but needed the bearings to do so. Because Wade has plans to go to car show at Tamworth in a couple of weeks time he wanted to get the parts over to Dave so he can finish the machining, so Wade can then take the finished pump with him. And while at Anglade I spotted, of all things, another Packard water pump on the shelf! Turns out it belongs to another guy in the club who needs some machining work done.

Back at the workshop Big Red was thoroughly warmed up and then went up on the hoist for an oil change. Wade was taking the opportunity to change the oil, check the fluids, a greasing, etc, etc. All in readiness for the Tamworth trip which is about 250 miles North West.

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Tuesday 17th April 2012

Because Wade wasn't at the workshop in the morning I dropped in around lunchtime to find him pottering around with Big Red. But I soon left him to it because of this thread - Challenging Mid'30's resto project.

Now why would I refer to that? Because, against the advice of a couple of Forum members I was seriously contemplating buying it! I was spurred on by my wife who was concerned I needed a Packard project to play with. Isn't that nice? So I'd teed up a mid afternoon time to inspect the Packard which is located about 70 miles south of Sydney at Mittagong where the Packard National Rally was based in 2009. Only trouble was the inspection time was relatively close to the end time of the eBay auction. I also arranged with my wife that I would phone her to bid, on my behalf after the inspection, should the Packard check out to be worth it. This, as I said, despite advice offered like "...It is a parts car. Period...." and "...You would be crazy to buy this car..." With those thoughts in my mind I made my way to Mittagong where I was met by Al, who I first thought was Rick the eBay seller of the car, after all I'd never met him before. Rick was busy so Al was my guide for the inspection. Followed Al out to the 120 acre property where the car was located and, on driving in, spotted another Packard, a green 20's Sedan with a tarp over the main body.

But back to the Packard of my dreams. It's a '3? Packard, a '3?? The more learned and knowledgeable here may have a more definitive answer than '3?, from the pic's I took. Anyway, first look at the '3? was enough to convince me the advice of others was spot on, especially the second quote. Anybody looking to buy plenty of rust was certainly going to get their monies worth but that's about all. Maybe the diff and trans were salvageable but I'm afraid little else was. So I departed, not sadder, but wiser and glad I'd taken the time to check it out. Otherwise there would always be that lingering question of: Should I have bought it?

The upside of the trip was seeing some other Packards, there being 3 others visible besides the green '20's sedan. See the few pic's I took, time was limited otherwise I'd still be there. I believe the owner has many, many cars including many, many Packards with those I saw just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

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