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Tuesday, 20th October 2015
for the kind words Terry.

With Terry's words in mind, more improvisation was required today.

Originally was thinking I'd call upon the services of my son-in-law on a Saturday morning to help me get the bonnet(hood) in place. That was Plan A, but there was also a Plan B, being to enlist the services of some "old guys" a few doors down the road. These "old guys" meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays as members of the local Bowral Men's Shed. However, on contemplating my options overnight, another means of accomplishing this task came to mind, we'll label that Plan C. Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, use the chain block to lift the bonnet(hood) up high enough then push the Coupe under it and lower it into place.

And so it came to pass, using the same rope as used with the front clip but only one piece needed this time. By the way, I was never a boy scout as my knots will testify. Was worried about the 2 side pieces of the bonnet(hood) being pulled together by the rope but came up with what I think was an innovative solution. This was to call upon the services of one Lightning McQueen! Looking around the garage spied ol' Lightning up on the high shelf, but he was soon down. This Lighning is an inflatable, used as a kids sprinkler for hot days and fun running through the spray! With a towel wrapped around the Goddess of Speed and Lightning at the rear wedged between the two bonnet(hood) sides and held down by the rope crossing over above him, it was a perfect setup. Hauled the bonnet(hood) up, pushed the Coupe forward but it ended up almost right against the old sideboard now used as a bench and storage. Wasn't quite lining up with the holes but a 6" long thin bolt was used as a guide for the descending journey. Finally a little muscle enabled the left cowl bolt to be dropped into place. Turned to the front and using the same technique, of a long thin bolt as a guide, dropped the front down and secured that with the centre bolt.

With the bonnet(hood) located in place turned to the part I wasn't looking forward to, under the dash to secure a nut to the cowl bolt. Tried this first from the left side but the angle and the almost immovable impediments(speedo cable, OD cable, armoured ignition cable and heater air inlet cable) conspired to prevent this happening. So moved to coming in from the right(passenger) side and this time with a big puffy outdoor chair cushion. The old thin, although folded, blanket just wasn't providing sufficient cushioning from the seat bottom framing, much better. Also used a block of wood the hold the windscreen demister(defroster) back. Now I could clearly see where and what needed to be done. Managed to start the nut on the bolt, but of course the bolt started turning too! Even an orangutan wouldn't have been any good in this situation. Tried wedging a ring spanner(wrench) against the bonnet(hood) side but it slipped off when the nut turned the bolt. Another spanner(wrench), this time an open-ender and another spanner(wrench) under the end away from the bolt to provide the angle needed, together with a brick laid on top to give weight to the occassion. A cloth was used during this to provide paint protection. First attempt the planets, or rather the brick, wasn't aligned allowing the bolt to slip up and rotate. Second attempt, after some fine tuning of brick placement and alignment, success. That folks is how you can get a helping hand when you don't have one!

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Saturday, 24th October 2015

Back to the Coupe today where I completed the bonnet(hood) install. And now I know why, almost always, when Wade's working under a Packard dash he's on his back, legs up the front seat back and feet dangling over the top of the seat back. Because, with good lighting, you can see most everything reasonably well and you can reach most things after some contorting. Using a neon tube lead-light and a LED rechargeable torch(flashlight) was able to install the right rear side bonnet(hood) hold down bolt. Required the brick trick again but, after seeing The Martian movie yesterday, feel quite pleased with my innovation. BTW - I really enjoyed the movie, but no Packards in it! Front of the bonnet was straightforward. Tightened up the front bumper bolts and reconnecting the front turn signal wiring. Then the intent was a longer test drive but rain stopped that, however tomorrow is forecast to be fine.

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Sunday, 25th October 2015

Finished things off on the Coupe today, first by installing the kick panels and the front seat bottom. Then some work on the driver's door(left) panel. For quite some time that door's arm rest has been sitting on the rear seat floor! It fell off because the screws holding it to the inner door skin were no longer doing their job, mind you one of them was a wood screw! The upholstery panel had also slipped down a little because half the clips around the outside of it are missing. So, took off the door and window handles, removed the upholstery panel and removed the garnish moulding from the window. The garnish moulding "clamps" against the top of the upholstery panel helping to secure it in place. Besides the lack of clips, at the top rear of the upholstery panel there's a slot into which a clip on the inner door skin fits. The slot had torn and wasn't doing it's locating function. As a temporary(how long that is we'll see) fix used duct tape to re-inforce the slot area and provide something for the clip to get into. Seems to work, but time will tell. With the upholstery panel in place, located by the door handles and held by what clips there were and also the garnish moulding then turned to the arm rest. In my small collection of miscellaneous screws found a couple a little larger in diameter that would do the trick and used them successfully. Well, at least the arm rest hasn't fallen off......yet.

Also took the Coupe for a test drive, for about ten minutes, and all went well. Later my wife joined me for another run, but this time there was purpose to it apart from testing out the Coupe. Visited a number of garden centres, looking for decorative pots as a feature for the front of our house. Of course the first garden centre "we" visited was the one with a '58 Lincoln Continental Mark lll that's been sitting mostly under a tarpaulin for almost the length of time we've lived in this part of the world. Huge array of pots available and was used as a reference when we moved on to the next garden centre. This one was a big box hardware store, nowhere near as much variety in pots but at least the prices were reasonable. Moving on again to a real "garden centre" with a good variety of pots with prices commensurate with a smaller business. And they had the pots my wife wanted! I'll pick them up tomorrow because of space limitations in the Coupe. Also tomorrow I'll be cleaning up all the greasy marks left on the Coupe over the last three months and giving it a general clean and polish. Next Sunday our Packard club is having a run down this way so I'll then be ready for that.

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Sunday, 8th November 2015

Took the Coupe for a leisurely local drive today. But in the week prior to the previous Sunday, when we'd gone on a Packard club run, had attended to a few minor outstanding items reinstalling the badge bar and the fire extinguisher. The badge bar was updated to include badges from the last two Australian National Packard Rallys. To accommodate these 2 Rally badges another pair of badges had to be sacrificed, being the PAC and PI badges. These had given honourable service over the course of the last 6 years but being an Aussie, Aussie badges do have preference. Also replaced the right(passengers) side outside mirror which was 2nd hand, rusty and getting rustier. Replaced with another 2nd hand mirror with a dent, but at least it's not rusty! The Packard Club run was a small affair with only 4 Packards in attendance being mine, Noel's '39 120 Touring Sedan, Jeff's '52 200 Deluxe Touring Sedan and Chris's '54 Clipper Super Club Sedan. Coupe went well, meeting up with the others at a truck stop at Pheasants Nest. Convoyed from there on an Antique Store crawl followed by a nice lunch at the Mittagong RSL Club's dining room. With the Coupe running well, thought I must have done something right in the previous few months! But todays drive had a nasty little surprise, fortunately at it's end. On investigating a rattle from the front of the car, found 2 of the left front wheel lug bolts were floating around inside the hubcap! Obviously didn't tighten them sufficiently, but those and every other lug bolt have now been checked and tightened and re-tightened. After patting myself on the back for last Sunday I had to castigate myself today for not doing such a good job after all.

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Monday 11th January, 2016

Another year has passed, now making it 7 years since the Coupe was first registered on the road here in Oz. So, before the required mandatory safety inspection, I drove the Coupe up to see Wade, a mere 540km return trip in 36c weather, so he could run a practiced eye over it. Especially since I've been taking things off and putting them back on, don't know what mischief I might have caused inadvertently or otherwise. Seems I must have been doing something right because Wade couldn't find anything to fault. Or at least, being the gentleman he is, not commenting on it. Although if there had been anything safety or operating related he certainly would have done so. The only drama was getting the left front blinker to work. Bulb was good, tested by Wade. All the other blinkers were working OK so switched the lead, where it comes out of the loom in the engine compartment, for the right front blinker to the left front and it still didn't work. Wade then made up a long length of cable to bypass the current cable, still wouldn't work. But then, a bit of jiggling got it going. Seems the connectors in the engine compartment weren't giving a good connection so Wade replaced the connectors for both the left and right side wires just to be sure. That did the trick, now have working blinkers on all four corners.

Also saw GeoffC's '39 TJ Richards bodied 110, which is still in progress, although getting close to being finished. Just the brakes to do. Although these had been done when the car was restored, lack of use coupled with hydroscopic brake fluid, led to them needing another rebuild. For this rebuild Wade bought 4 new cylinders and 3 new flexible hoses from Kanters. Sounds good doesn't it? Except...........the fittings on the flexible hoses don't fit the new brake cylinders! Different thread coupled with a different length of thread. To expedite this situation Wade is getting hoses made up locally that will fit! Another job that Wade has on the electronics workbench is rebuilding a radio for Barry's '51 Convertible. Main job was rebuilding a switch for it, one of the pieces having rusted away.

With Geoff's '39 110 undergoing brake work, was reminded of this thread, about front wheel bearing lock nuts.

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Mal, notice there is no split pin showing in the photo of Geoff's front wheel bearing. Pin hole looks to be closer to the outside lock nut than with ours. Was pin taken out for photo purposes, or...?

(o{}o)

"notice there is no split pin....Was pin taken out for photo purposes, or...?"

John,

I just snapped some photos of Geoff's car when Wade was making up the long test cable, the photos are "as found".

Monday 12th September 2016

With the Aussie 17th National Packard Rally starting at the end of the month it's time to prepare the Coupe for the trip. The Rally is based at Victor Harbor, South Australia, but starts at Adelaide. Prior to the start of the Rally I'm taking the Coupe in the Bay to Birdwood Run from Adelaide to the National Motor Museum, a great event.

For me it's a 1,330km trip there which is being undertaken over 3 days in convoy with some other club members. Day one will include a stop at the Binalong Motor Museum as well as 395kms of travel. Days two and three are 542kms and 379kms respectively. While the trip home will be by an alternate route, about 1,440kms, stopping at Forbes to visit McFeeters Motor Museum.

As part of the Coupes preparation, today I bought a grease gun and a cartridge of grease. This was made easier by one of my sons giving me a auto supplies store gift card on Fathers Day. Previously I didn't have to worry about that piece of garage equipment but with Wade now 230kms north it's now not that easy to drop in to get your Packard serviced, although I had tee'd up an appointment, but some other matters prevented that from happening.

So after reading the instructions for both grease gun and cartridge, just about a first for me, assembled and loaded up the gun. Then jacked up the front of the Coupe, placed jackstands under the front frame rails and started my grease monkeying. Started off on the creeper but I abandoned that after a while and just crabbed around on the concrete. Hmmmm, it wasn't this hard when the Coupe was up in the air on a hoist and you could walk leisurely around underneath from grease nipple to grease nipple. Same problem arose from last time when the right lower arm rear cap and nipple popped out as I was greasing it. But managed to reinstall the cap with hammer, socket, centrepunch and a few choice words.

Also, being under the Coupe, thought I'd check the level in the trans, but on taking the fill plug out a stream of oil ran out and down my arm necessitating replacing the plug hastily to prevent an Exxon Valdez type disaster. Then thought I'd better check to see if I had any trans oil, and didn't, so that'll be chased up on Wednesday. Will also check diff level as well and, for that, I do have oil!

After these levels have been attended to I'll then take the Coupe for a decent run to thoroughly warm the engine and change the oil. A little while back ordered an oil filter only to learn late last week the supplier is out of stock with expected delivery to be after the Rally is finished! Any one with any ideas on whether you can clean the old cartridge or not? Or is it just drain the oil, drain the cartridge, clean the filter housing, reuse cartridge, add oil and there you are?

Mal, a common maintenance instruction "back in the day" was to replace the filter at every other oil change. I think your idea to reuse the filter cartridge will work just fine. Be careful with the top's gasket.

(o[]o)

Wednesday 14th September 2016

Things didn't go as expected, I'm still without oil for the trans. Was going to visit the supplier Wade put me onto 8 years ago for the oil concerned, Penrite Transoil 140. But.....the guy retired about a year ago saving me a 170km round trip. Instead it was off to Supercheap Auto nearby, about a 10km round trip, although I knew it wouldn't be on the shelf. Although not on the shelf the guy serving me couldn't find it on his computer until this Luddite was able to direct him to it!? Good so far, but instead of a 5 litre container it's only available in 1 litre containers. To cover myself ordered 3 x 1 litres only to receive a call later; that of their 2 suppliers one will only supply a pack of 6 x 1 litre containers, albeit at a discount rate, while the other will supply 1 litre containers but at a premium price. Bit the bullet and ordered the 6 x 1 litres because at some stage I need to replace the trans/OD unit with the one Wade rebuilt for me, so the extra oil won't go to waste. All the conversation about the oil order changes being made while on my back under the Packard, couldn't think of a better place to do it!

And what was I doing under the Coupe without the trans oil? Well, after a good 25km round trip in the Coupe to get the engine well warmed in preparation for the engine oil change, jacked up the front and installed jackstands under the frame rails and drained the still very hot oil. Also took off the oil filter canister top, removed the dripping filter very carefully, then using a turkey baster sucked the residual oil out of the canister and finished by cleaning out the canister. Set the filter up to drain vertically, then later laid it on it's side and rotated it at intervals to remove pretty much all of the old oil. Also climbed under the front end again and greased a nipple I'd missed on Monday. Noticed the missed nipple when adjusting the front brakes, there are a lot of nipples to grease!

By now the engine had virtually finished draining, with only intermitent drips still emerging from the sump plug hole. Sump plug back in, about 6 litres into the sump, filter replaced and about 1/2 litre of oil added to the canister and the canister top fixed in place. As John said, was "careful with the top's gasket", and used some small daubs of grease to position the gasket when putting it on. On starting up the Coupe, no oil leaks and went for a short test run which went well. Oil pressure good with brakes pulling up straight and true.

But on returning home disaster! I'd left the drain pan under the car and had driven out OK, but on returning home the bottom of the front crossmember hit, split and dragged the drain pan. Although I did mention the Exxon Valdez on Monday, never for a minute did I think I'd be captaining the ship when disaster struck! I can only put it down to the premise that, after the front of the Coupe had hung in the air for the oil change, on returning to ground the suspension hadn't fully settled until being driven for a while. Is that an explanation or an excuse? Whatever it is, as Noel would say, "It's all my fault"!

Fortunately no sea, bird life nor the natural environment were harmed in this disaster. A concrete floor and an old strip of carpet serving as my drip device bore the brunt of the spill. About 1/2 of the used oil was still in the drain pan and that was able to be decanted to a waste container. Then cleaned up the slops and drops.


Have now jacked up both the front and back of Coupe with jackstands under both ends. This in preparation for Friday, when the Transoil 140 is expected to be delivered to Supercheap. Will also clean undercar from the splash effect of the 'mini' Exxon Valdez disaster.