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We ran into some problems last night. We need two bushings that Ron didn't have. The rear planetary bushing - 458923 and the rear pump bushing WHICH ISN'T LISTED IN THE PARTS BOOK??
What's up with that? Ordered both from Max this AM.
Also ran into problems getting the seal out of the throttle valve shaft (3.587). Had the same problem that I had on the O-ring. The last person in there apparently used that old Indian shellac. #$%^&* and a few other words were used to help loosen it. PB Blaster had some dissolving effect and it came out. It took a good half hour to remove the seal from the rear housing. Can't apply too much pressure on that aluminum casting and it was the original Packard seal - had the Packard part number on it. Also had a devil of a time removing the speedo insert because of the gunk built up there.
So things are on hold till the bushings arrive. I would like to put that Indian shellac on the fellow that used it. I won't say where but you can use your imagination.

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The tranny is done and sitting in front of the chassis. Not very happy with Max's bushings - I'll call Kanter next time as he still has NOS. I like babbit in my bushings, and want the proper one, not two to make one.
Thank you Ron Siegal for the rebuild !
I bolted the torque convertor to the flex-plate and checked the run-out with a dial indicator. It is +/- .003 which seems well within tolerance. This was a suggestion from Dan Kanter via Dave Czirr as he had seen some flex-plates bent by allowing the trans to hang on the torque convertor after pulling the mounting bolts and sliding the tranny back. When removing these trans, I always unbolt the convertor first and run a bungee from side to side to hold the convertor in place while I remove the trans. I guess some folks don't do that. I am working on removing the tack strip from the main bow and the screws are rusted in place. Using up a lot of PB &*^%$!
I'll bolt the tranny to the engine tomorrow and maybe get it painted!

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Engine is painted and so are the special Caribbean shields. One of them has the initials DC

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That looks great! What type of paint are you using?

Paint is Bill Hirsch's 54,56 Packard bronze.

I forgot to mention that I am indebted to Brian Harpst for the loan of his original Caribbean shield and providing the proper size bolts and flat washers to accomodate the mounting of the front shield. I had a bodyshop buddy of mine, Mike DiFrancesca make copies of Brian's shield. Apparently that shield is missing on a lot of Caribbeans.

Wondering which missing shields you are referring to. I have one slightly curved rectangle in front of front carb choke area and another on valley cover under manifold like one next to painters knee. Mine is painted black with some kind of anti rattle stuff on top. Are there more than these? If so, would appreciate a picture.

Howard -

The crowned rectangle for the choke shield should be obvious to anyone who's seen an authentic V8 Carib with hood up, but I've seen a couple examples with a zig-zag stamping that is completely wrong.

Attached is a pic (front view) of the "intake" shield I removed from my unrestored, unmolested '56 Caribbean Hardtop and loaned to Randy. That's something I wouldn't do for just anybody, but Randy is a great guy and lives within a reasonable driving distance.

This shield was missing from his partially-restored car, and very hard to see as installed on the engine. It's a bit tricky to R&I with the intake in place, too, but can be done.

My shield appeared to be unpainted (and unrusted), and I took it, gunked-up, to Randy for his inspection. We concluded that there was enough bronze paint on it that it wasn't merely overspray. So, he decided he would have his painted bronze. It is entriely possible that there were variations in production coatings - not terribly hard to change if it can be proven one way or the other.

The anti-rattle stuff is leather, folded over the top edge and stapled through the sheet steel.

With the input from all the great V8 owners here, I suspect we will eventually be able to put together the definitive judging manual for these cars!

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Brian, thanks for pict. What I have is almost as you show, differences being black and the leather has 2 staples, one where yours is and one in approx middle of the bent top. Its possible mine was repainted incorrectly when the car went thru the restoration.

I bought an original 55 shield from Minnesota Mike and it is painted ivory. The anti-rattle pieces are rubber on that one and appear to be original. I put rubber ones on the repros I had made and affixed them with a stainless steel wire that is a close approximation of the original staple. These are a CLOSE fit as these pictures will attest. Now to find all those loose bolts I kept throwing in the trunk and pound them in place. We got the engine tranny in place with the motor mount bolts to the frame just started and then dropped the assembly toward the rear so we could slide on the PB motor. It went on very easy with the trans hanging down like that and cleared the center X with ease. Just a thought if anyone needs to remove one in the future.

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