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Quote:

Al,

Thanks for the words of encouragement, don't know about the Michaelangelo effect spilling over to the pic of the feathers though. I just needed a lighter background for the pic and the catalog on Wade's desk was the first thing that came to hand!

The hands on, dirt on and paint on part will certainly be long remembered but I could do with a with less of the "dirt on" as I resemble a coal miner most days after I've finished.

Another thing I meant to mention in my last post is the Oil Filter conversion Wade is working on for his '34. Yesterday I left him hacksawing at a piece of billet aluminium which will will be the adaptor plate for this task. Basically it involves installing a spin-off oil filter on the '34 but from looking at the engine it will look stock and no one will know! What I will do is take some pic's of the conversion and get some words from Wade on how he is doing it and post these on the Pre-War Forum.

Wednesday 2nd April 2008

Time at the workshop today was spent re-scraping engine block, sump, front cross-member and some parts of the frame. Then marine cleaned. This took most of my time as I wanted to ensure I didn't have to go back and do it yet again!

During the course of doing this Wade raised a question about the distributor that came out of the '41. Because of this I will be raising a post in the Pre-War Forum after I finish here.

And when I returned home this afternoon, found a packet for me containing the King-pin set I'd bought on eBay. So now we should have all the bits necessary for the front-end rebuild. Just got to finish painting the front frame, which will be done by the end of this week, and then we're in business.

Now for anyone wondering about what I'll be doing after all the Idaho dirt is gone from the '41 my wife has it figured out. See bought some paver's off eBay, and so I picked them up on Saturday in the Ford Laser Hatch(Mazda 323 clone, badge engineering)loaded to the gunwales with 210 paving stones. But now the fun and dirty part - laying them! So I'm back in amongst the dirt, see the pic's below.

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Thursday 3rd April 2008

Only spent the morning at the workshop. Arrived to find Barry Smith, he of the '51 Convertible that arrived at the same times as the '41. Barry was down from Tamworth, about 300 miles north-west from Sydney, and along with some other smaller matters was picking up the grill for the '51 which he had re-chromed. Wade arrived soon after and Barry proceeded to bring us up to date on progress on the '51. The next major process is Barry's renewing of the passenger and boot compartment floors. Before Barry left I got the details of the Sydney plater he used and will use him in lieu of the Newcastle, 100 miles north, one I had contemplated using.

After Barry left it was into the '41 with the front frame, engine, etc metal readied and washed down. On Saturday will POR-15 these and then the following week we should be right to start re-assembly of the front end.

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My dad had a '51 convertible when I was 8 years old. His was green (I forget what color interior). It was the 1st convertible I ever rode in!

For some reason he didn't own it for very long...wish I had it now!

Saturday 5th April 2008

Spent the morning at the workshop. First cleaned the floor under the '41 from all the droppings of the last few weeks. Then, with the compressed air gun, blew all the extra metal ready dust out, then wiped over those areas still showing excess metal ready and blew over them again.

Next was the moment I been waiting for. Painting! But first, after the previous fiasco where more POR-15 ended up on me than on the '41 some time was spent with a plan of attack formed. Also because of my proximity to freshly painted surfaces in a tight environment and my penchant for wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts I fabricated a pair of "arm protectors" out of a pair of socks! These covered my arms from the rubber gloves to my shirt sleeve, or so I thought, as the left sleeve rode up and I've got the daubs to show for it. Nevertheless it was a vast improvement from the last time round although the right knee also has it's share of paint on it too. So spent the next 2&1/2 hours ducking and weaving, on and off the creeper, to get the best angles to apply the POR-15. No doubt, when I get back to the workshop om Monday, there will be plenty of places needing touch up. Would have posted a pic, but camera batteries were dead, will do so on Monday.

And while I was painting Wade brought in Cablan. the old guy who didn't trust his sons to do it, to look at the rust issue. Cablan says he can fix it, but first I need to remove the right front fender so he has better access. He is going to fabricate a new piece of metal then cut out the rusted metal, and then MIG weld in the new piece. And when I asked him "how much" he said don't worry about it! At least I'll have to get him his drink of choice as I'm sure he'll have a dry throat by the time he's through.

G'day Mal, Well done! I couldn't believe the amount of Iowa soil under that wheel barrow! It should grow some lovely Pontiac potatoes! Best regards Peter T.

Monday 7th April 2008

Down to the workshop early and into removing the right front fender. This necessitated removal of the lower panel in front of the radiator to gain access to the bolts holding the front of the fender to the right side grill panel. What a fiasco! Helped in no small part by my POR-15 effort last Saturday as the threads for these bolts, which weren't standard were filled with the stuff. Finally had to gain Wade's assistance to break or remove these as the case may be. Removal of the rest of the bolts and bolts and nuts was fairly straight-forward except at one stage about half seemed to be breaking rather than undoing! Wasn't a worry, as they will be replaced anyway, until I got to the studs and nuts holding the rear of the guard to the body. Managed to snap the lower 2 and only the upper 2 came out relatively easily. With the fender removed it was easier to see and access the rust area and there was also some surface rust where fender and body met. But at least all's clear for Cablan to do the rust repair.

Next was starting the re-assembly of the front end. Only one side has been dis-assembled leaving the other as a template to guide us as to how it look's when finished. First up was cleaning up excess POR-15 from the mating surfaces of the stub axle and the suspension upright. Then cleaning the king pin, the needle bearings, and the thrust bearing before pressing the needle bearings into the stub axle. Then lubing the bearings before a trial fin with the king pin. All well so far but, there weren't enough shims provided in the kit so Wade went around to the brake guy who said "Lucky you came along, I was going to toss that old box of shims". So to cut a long story short, Wade now has a good supply of different thickness shims for future Packard work. So between the shims we had and the new supply the problem was overcome.

While Wade went round to the brake guy, and I'll come back to the brake guy a little later, I went under the '41 again, this time to remove the aero-drive cable because it was frozen up and wouldn't move. Thought I was going well until I found the cable I had removed had a gear drive on it when I removed it from the O/D! O/D could mean Oh Dear or Oh Damn or somesuch but in my case it obviously means Old & Dumb. Anyway, replaced the speedo cable then found the O/D cable and verified it was for the aero-drive and proceeded to undo the clevis pin connecting it to the arm on the O/D, then undid the bracket where it clamps to the gearbox mount.

Back to re-assembly of the king pins, and after damaging one shim because of too tight a fit, the stub axle and upright assembly was together and requiring pressing of the cotter pin in the stub axle. Until at the press we saw that the stub axle was on upside down! Fortunately this was before the pin was pressed so it was a matter of re-assembling it right side up. Easy to see how it happened as there were numerous fitting exercises before the final assembly. Then to the caps over the ends of the pin. These were a little too wide so to reduce the diameter Wade pressed a small socket on the inside of the cap while a larger socket took the force around the edge of the cap and it worked a treat!

Next was to be reaming of the bushes pressed into the lower support arm a couple of months ago then pressing the pin into the upright and lower support arm. But! Wade on examination found the bushes used to be too long as they didn't leave any room for the end caps to be inserted. So, the bushes were pushed out, and after a series of measurements it was decided to have about 0.175" machined from the length of each bushing.

Again, this time while Wade went round o the machine shop I was back to the '41 to finish up removal of the O/D cable. Finally retrieved the cable by pushing it through the firewall. When Wade returned he advised the machining would be done tomorrow. So we turned to the O/D cable and after Wade removed the activation switch and a little oil was added to the cable through the switch mount - movement was obtained! This was repeated a number of times and the cable will be left for the oil to work it's way through the length of the cable aided by gravity and periodic oil top-ups.

But back to the brake guy. Turns out he was doing some work on Ed's(another bloke in our Packard Club) '37 120 Sedan and on backing it out managed to scrape one of the front fenders as the guy guiding him said he had clearance issues one side so he apparently over compensated on the other side! Naturally Ed's not happy, but I believe the situation will be rectified to Ed's satisfaction.

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Wednesday 9th April 2008

Early at workshop, so started on removal of the temperature sending unit from the rear of the head. With this out we'll be able to work on the dash and instrument cluster on the bench when re-wiring starts. Unfortunately the sending unit is well embedded and even after numerous applications of penetrant I failed to budge it and don't want to lean on it too hard as I don't want to break it! So before I left today gave it another good spray and will return to it tomorrow.

Next was the cowl vent. Removed this fairly easily as it's held in place by the nuts and bolts that affix it to the bars it pivots on and the handle to open/close it. Also applied penetrant to the pivot points as one was a lot tighter than the other only letting the vent open about halfway, and it's much freer now. Old gasket is completely shot and I'll have to clean out and paint the cowl vent's channels before the new gasket is installed. I'll also paint with POR-15 any areas under the dash affected by the ingress of water.

By this time Wade had arrived and after some discussion I started to undoing the drivers side front fender. Only did the panel between the radiator and the grill as this was the one that gave me trouble on the other side, but this time seeing it had the correct fasteners it was relatively easy. The reason this front fender was also taken off is because neither front fender had beading between it and the body while the rears do! And also to better check for rust in the front corner of the body.

Then it was back to assembly of the front end. Lower bushes had been machined and they pressed in easily. Wade then started the laborious process of reaming them out to fit the new pin and this was done slowly to ensure it was done correctly. There was some shuffling of shims to ensure the correct fit and it ended up that a shim was slowly ground down and all went together perfectly. Next was disassembly of the other control arm, upright and stub axle. This presented a few problems in pressing out one of the cotter pins but with John's assistance this was accomplished. Tomorrow I'll clean, metal ready and paint these ready for re-assembly, hopefully on Friday. But that will dependent on Wade's availability. He's putting the '37 Super 8 up on Rick's hoist on Friday to lube and inspect it prior to Wade and his wife Gina travelling to Gilgandra, about 4&1/2 hours west of Sydney, to visit Gina's 90 y.o. mother next week.

While Wade and John were tackling the cotter pin, I was back under the front of the '41 undoing the rest of the fender bolts, only snapped 2 this time but this was one of the 4 fender to body studs of which only 2 were still intact on this side! The problem bolt turned out to be the one in the upper front corner and it wouldn't budge, or break, for want of trying. So Wade used his small grinder and together with a cold chisel then back to the grinder, and this time with a cutting blade the head of the bolt was removed. Judicious use of a screwdriver followed and the fender was off.

Forgot to mention that Wade, before he came into the workshop went around to the brake guy because he couldn't get the brakedrums off Ed's '37. Wade had taken Harvey's drum puller and they came off easily. And it turns out the reason Ed had taken his '37 in was that he had a falling pedal, it was getting lower and lower to the floor. This has now been traced to slightly worn cups which, although not leaking, allow air to enter into the brake system. And Wade got the machined oil filter adaptor for his '34 back from Ivan. There are still a few pieces needed for this conversion but, when all's done, will post pic's and dialog in the Pre-War Forum.

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Thursday 10th April 2008

First up tried unscrewing the temp sending unit again, no luck so more penetrant. This procedure was attempted a number of times during the morning with the same unsuccessful outcome each time. Then checked the aero-drive cable and added oil and worked it in and out again, also repeated this procedure a number of times through the morning.

Then to the item of the day, cleaning and painting the lower suspension pieces of other side to that already done. So Marine Cleaned, Metal Readied and then POR-15'd the 3 pieces.

Because there were times waiting for the processes to do there thing, in the lulls proceeded to take off the front bumper and splash shields(the metal pieces between the bumper and the body panels and grill). Next week the front and rear bumpers, over-riders and other hardware will be going to the chrome platers used by Barry for his '51 Convertible grill re-chrome, to be returned to their shining splendour, and should take 1 to 2 weeks to do.

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Mal, got a fright when I saw the photo with the two bonnet lids up! Thought it was one huge mascot! HAha! You are progressing very fast now. If all else fails you might have to drill out that temp sender!