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Looks great! Your patience and diligence are paying off!

great job!

As always, thanks for your comments fellas. I'm trying to post my Project as clearly and comprehensively as some of you guys - who do a great job and help so many others.

Thanks BDeB for the info on the trunk lid - I'll paint over the Schutz when I do it.

Body painted at last!

I think of this as the most gratifying bit of progress so far. Sure is a good feeling to see the car looking 'half-decent' after nearly ten years of it being in its underwear (so to speak). It's a bit like the caterpillar finally turning into a butterfly.

The next event that I think will be equally satisfying will be when the 288 eventually comes back to life after more than 40 years silent. Hopefully that is some time in the not too distant future.

I finished the actual spray-painting of the main body shell a few weeks ago. Then sprayed the front guards, spats (wheel covers) and trunk lid etc (- which had not been refitted to the shell since restoring them). Should have posted but in the meantime I had my PC fail (slowly over a few weeks). The motherboard went belly up so now have replaced it.

There are around ten coats (-four colour, six clear). I used acrylic after much consideration. It was difficult trying to decide between acrylic and 2-pak. Car was colour sanded with 1200, 1500 and finally 2000.

The entire car was machine buffed a couple of weeks later after spraying, when paint had hardened. (Prefer to wait, even though it takes more time to buff. Personal opinion is that I can achieve better gloss by doing that). Buffed the guards / trunk lid etc while off the car then fitted them. There is still another full machine buffing to be done before it is hand-buffed to get the best finish I possibly can.

Couldn't resist placing the grille in position as well as the Packard script!

Despite having the newly chromed bumpers and overriders all ready to fit, I'll leave them off until the engine / gearbox etc are fitted.

Now it's the mechanicals to be getting on with.


A few views of the Matador Maroon Metallic




This photo tends to give the best rendition of the colour . . .



Nice to have the P-A-C-K-A-R-D script on

Very nice work Larry! When I painted my 51 last month, I sprayed the underside of the trunk, masking off the undercoating. After the paint was well dried, I masked off the paint area and repainted the undercoating. From what I can find, the undercoating was applied first and the paint was applied with some overspray going on the undercoating. The undercoating will bleed thru the paint.

Beautiful!

Good looking car.

BEAUTIFUL!!! After seeing your pictures I know I will return my '51 to Matador Maroon - thanks to the formula you sent me. Excellent work.

Lee,

Congratulations!

You've come some way since we, fellow members of the Packard Automobile Club of Australia, visited 3 months back.

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Thanks fellas, glad you like the colour and result, can't tell you how many times 'what colour will it be??' was discussed over and over with my wife. It was originally Turquoise Light which is also very nice. Matador Maroon eventually won.

Mal has shown my garage when it was tidy(!). Should see it in its 'normal' state. The dog won't go in there . . .

It's been a couple of months since I did any work of consequence on the car. Plenty of small but necessary stuff has been done in recent weeks (see pics of some tasks done) like arranging chroming and finding or ordering parts etc. I attended the PACA (Packards Australia) National Rally then took a few extra weeks to travel back home doing some camping on the way. Now it's back to work again.

The chroming of bumpers, overriders , door handles, quarter window frames and a few other parts was done really well, so very pleased with that. I fitted two new quarter window glasses in their newly chromed frames (- the old glasses were hopelessly de-laminated and cracked).

I've got the engine (which was fully disassembled and has been for 40+years!) on a stand and have found most of the necessary bits and pieces for it amongst many boxes of parts. (No shortage of parts because I have a number of complete 288 engines. Pity I have only the one car!).

After measuring tolerances on the engine it's pleasing to find that all tolerances are better than expected. Bores, mains and big end wear are all well within limits. The engine appears to have had an easy life because the measurements all show only moderate wear. (My car was off the road well before 1975 so has not been driven for almost forty years. It may have been in storage since the mid-1960's).

I am using new cam bearings and new pistons/ rings. Oil pump checks out fine and fuel pump has been renovated. Have a kit for the carburetor and new freeze plugs plus all gaskets and seals, ready to go in.

Of several cylinder heads I have (- according to date stamps there's a '53, a '50 and two '51's) I'm using the correct '51 head. It had both water outlet screws sheared off flush with the head surface and it was an hour's work to extract those. 'Easy-outs' were no use (- studs extremely tight due to rusted in) so I drilled exact center and eventually was able to remove all remains without any damage to the original threads. My method to get them out cleanly has worked aok for every seized screw so far (and there have been quite a few).

Next step will be restoration of the generator, starter, and various other bits. A lot of other mechanical parts have already been restored / painted / checked and are ready to use when the time comes to trot them out of storage.

My Ultramatic was restored way back in 1975. That will just go straight into the car and get 'tested' in the car. Who knows whether it will be ok or not. When that time arrives I'll ask the experts what I could or should do before it goes in. Maybe a flush-out or valve case off for a quick check etc but I'm not planning to disassemble it just on the basis of checking it. If it doesn't work then it'll come back out of the car and onto the bench. Still, that is months away yet.

Also am expecting a shipment of glass channel and division posts etc soon so it's likely I'll get diverted back to doing stuff on the body again. But engine back into the car is my main priority now.

The rear main seal is finally fitted.(- see my posts where I asked for advice because it seemed a very tight fit). Help was forthcoming and the seal is now bedded in ok. Today I've been lapping the valves in. Tomorrow I hope to place the rods with new pistons back into the block. Block is incorrect gray so it will be re-painted in the correct '51 engine colour.

Edit: Having trouble posting the photos - some won't stick and computer says 'No'!! I'll try again later . . . . .

Edit #2: Still can't attach pics so I'll try adding them in a new post

Headlight buckets restored. I've got the new cloth-covered wiring to go into them as well









Chroming turned out to be top quality. Should look good with new bumper bolts I was lucky enough to find on eBay









Quarter window frames re-chromed and new glass fitted




New camshaft bearings and the can is in excellent condition which was pleasing




Painting timing and side covers






Broken stud removal in the head I will use

New pistons & rings. They are the good 'original Packard' style 'Thermostrut' (steel inserts)

Block and crank cleaned & checked

The journals are virtually unmarked