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Wednesday 16th January 2013

With only Rick at the workshop, needed him to show me where the switch was to gain some illumination in Packard corner! Reason being, with Wade being away, I painted the battery box cover and it was nice to be able to at least see what you're painting. As well, cleaned up a few more parts Wade had left out, and painted those, some other parts for The Fossil and some nuts and bolts off my Coupe. Will return in a couple of days to take down the windchimes.

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Monday 21st January 2013

Back at the workshop after his Tamworth and Gilgandra sojourn, Wade and I worked on the front seat of The Fossil. While Wade disassembled bases of all four seats, Fossil and donor, I removed the upholstery on The Fossils drivers seat back piece and cleaned it together with some other pieces. Scared the cr@p out of me when one of the hose connections for the blasting cabinet media spray gun let go! That fixed got to work and cleaned all the pieces. EDIT - See my "mea culpa" in the next post!

During the course of this Chris, Starliner, arrived. Chris was there to 1) pickup his Hershey goodies, and 2) drop off the striker plates he had cast up for The Fossil at Wade's request. Chris had driven over in his '54 Clipper Super Club Sedan, but I didn't know that until I went outside to farewell him! It's looking good with the interior coming together, new seat and panel upholstery, but still a little way to go with the headliner, carpets and kick panels still to come. And Pepe, if you should read this, Chris thinks he'll be attending the Phillip Island Rally.

After Chris's departure continued on with The Fossils front seat. This time moving a wooden trim piece from one side to the other of a metal panel in the bottom half of the seat back. Wade had finished his seat bottom disassembly extracting I don't know how many upholstery tacks. Will be using the wooden bottoms from the seats of the donor car, The Fossils wooden bottom frames both suffering from breakages. At least that's one thing the donor car had lower miles, after all it did sit for years and years, although it was deteriorating due to elemental exposure. The metal hardware strips off the front of the wooden seat bottoms was also removed and cleaned. With all the metalwork cleaned up, including one spare piece from the donor car which will go on the shelf, gave them a coat of POR-15.

Backtracking a little, on Saturday I dropped my Coupe over to Col so he can start work on the scratch, scrape, ding, crack and chip repairs.

And fast forwarding, tomorrow Noel is dropping into the workshop late morning to see Wade. However after that he's proposing to travel onto Vintage Motor Garage on the Central Coast North of Sydney. I'm planning to hitch a ride with him, at the Bosses discretion of course, and there we should see Phil from Tassie's '26 333 6 cyl Sedan Limousine which is in the later throes of its restoration.

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Tuesday 22nd January 2013

First a "mea culpa", yesterday Quote:
This morning Wade was kind enough to let me in on a little secret, it's NOT part of the drivers seat back! It's actually the cover piece for the rear window roller blind! Wade didn't want me to be embarrassed by any comments once my error was noticed, good guy that Wade. However, as I am prepared to bear reasonable criticism, I've let the original post stand but with an EDIT pointing to this post. Plus, I've made so many blunders already, my skin has thickened considerably. If anyone wants to take that as a reference to my being a dinosaur, then, so be it!

That off my chest, onto todays events. My time at the workshop was limited because of travelling with Noel to the Vintage Motor Garage at Central Mangrove to pick up some pieces Noel had left there. As well, we were able to view the progress made on Phil's '26 333 Sedan Limousine. An enjoyable trip up, then Noel recovered his goodies and we were able to see Phil's '26. Since we saw it last it has been running, but not far. It had been thought the clutch was OK but the reality was somewhat different, the '26 only ran a minimal distance before the clutch failed. Likewise with the diff, it's developed quite an oil leak, it too was thought to be OK. Presently the trans is out and the clutch being repaired, next will be the diff, then the body will be painted. And when Noel inquired what was being done about a wiring harness for the '26, Jonathon advised it was already installed! The wiring harness came from Vintage Wiring Harness in Victoria and looks good. With this revelation Noel cast his beady judges eye over the engine compartment wiring and was duely impressed. Funny too about VWH, Wade and I were only discussing VWH yesterday with Chris!

VMG behind us Noel and I returned to the workshop but not before a lunch stop for Fish & Chips in a waterfront cafe at Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River. A really delightful way to enjoy part of a Packard-centric day. Noel was telling me about a holiday of his enjoyed at a house on the river some years ago and about the Riverboat Postman who services the various properties along the river reachable only by boat, see this link. Back at the workshop found Wade had addressed the wooden front seat bottoms and reglued them. He had also addressed the companion piece to the cover piece for the rear window roller blind. The rear window roller blind itself. With two blinds to select from Wade chose the one from the donor car as The Fossil's original had been restored previously but not very well. Plus the donor car blind's hardware was complete although very rusty. But with the rust now removed from the hardware it looks like with some paint and new blind material this little piece of the puzzle will be complete.

Tomorrow there'll be more Noel involvement. In the afternoon, if the Boss will give me the time off as I've been making a habit of this recently, I intend to join Noel. Noel is going to see and discuss with his painter the how, what, when, etc required for the painting of his Coupe's body.

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Is that a Renault Gordini next to the 26 at VMG?

G'day Lyndon,

Being blinded by the Packard I truely didn't notice what was next to it.

But.....the pic below looks, to me at least, like a Peugeot 203 but I've been wrong many a time!

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Yes looks like a 203.

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I bow down before you gentleman, for both the fine work done on the cars, and the reporting, keep up the good work.
Wes

Wednesday 23rd January 2013

Tuesday of last week I wrote "..The seat bottom was then screwed to the body timber frame rails, hopefully for the last time.." Just as well I included the rider because the hope and expectation when confronted with the reality and circumstances were a long way apart. Task this morning was to mount the Dynamotor under the drivers seat. But before going further what, you might ask, is a Dynamotor? My answer, a device to power the radio in the '34. It's composed of a 6V powered electric motor which turns a dynamo which produces 280V to power the radio! I believe many early car radios had this or a similar arrangement to power them. Because the cover/enclosure for the Dynamotor had been lost in the body destroying fire an alternate mounting system is being used. This necessitated drilling mounting holes in the front seat floor but most of these couldn't be accessed from undercar because of crossmember bracing and parts in the way. So the seat bottom came out and I'll say it again.....hopefully for the last time! With seat bottom back in, complete with Dynamotor, and that part of the wiring harness hooked up Wade asked something like "I suppose you want to hear the radio now?" Of course I responded "Yes!" To which, after the battery was hooked up, the radio came on immediately. Well, came on immediately, isn't exactly correct, more like the dial lit up. Then with Wade issuing instruction for me to hold the bare radio aerial wire, it worked! A lovely mellow tone well befitting a fine Packard. And I've gained another skill, human radio aerial! Probably limited scope for use but nevertheless I've got it!

Then it was off to meet up with Noel at Bankstown. From there we journeyed by Packard, with Fleurette being able to stretch her legs for the purposes of this exercise, to the panel and paint shop at Moorebank. There the requirements for completing the bodywork and the painting of Noel's Coupe were discussed with Frank, the owner, and Carl, the bodyman, but unfortunately I missed the painters name. Part of the discussion was whether to mount the body on the chassis, not for painting, but for fitting of doors, etc. In the interests of getting that right the chassis, together with mounts and fastenings, will now go to the panel shop, probably late next week. Additionally Noel will be supplying door seal rubbers and handles and locks for this phase. And Noel still needs to supply the front and rear mudguards(fenders) and bonnet(hood). Yesterday I mentioned wiring harnesses and I believe the new harness for Noel's Coupe should arrive in the near future, likewise the replacement rear mudguards(fenders).

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The Dynamotor is an interesting contraption. Was just looking at a couple of schematics showing radios with it. Looks the same as yours but was not the model EH -- maybe earlier.

There was mention of many dealers "running a profitable business" in selling and adding the Dynamotor to replace the earlier "B" Battery setup. Getting rid of batteries I can see but sure adds complexity and more to break in an already bulky radio. Since they also had vibrator setups in radios of the same 1934 era, makes me wonder what the advantage was over those simpler power supplies. Since Wade does radios, maybe he could enlighten me.

The Dynamotors had a padded enclosure to reduce the motor noise. Since you had to fabricate a mount, did that burn up as well.

I've seen the occasional early 30s Cadillac with a dynamotor mounted in the glove box.