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Nice. If they didn't have the sidemounts, I'd be interested. Are they for sale?

West, these are Jim's fenders, I am just providing shuttle service for them between So Cal and the Laughlin Meet. Like the Packard Parts underground rail road.

Kev
You need to upgrade your image. Buy this... or make it.

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No oneupmanship here, just FYI. A Chrysler Pacifica holds 2 1940 welled front fenders, 2 rear fenders, trunk rack and supports, 4 hood pieces, radiator shell, and 2 sidemount covers, head and parking lights. Packed for trip to the Canyon Auto paint shop.

Joe

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Kev, a big thanks to you and Rhonda for making the trip to grab the fenders, and for bringing them to Laughlin. Seems the parts exchange has already begun and we are weeks away yet.

West, I have one left non-side mount '40 fender available soon. It is a very decent fender. I will have two '39 non-side mount fenders available early next year also. Yes, they are different.

Joe, that is darned impressive! You are a very resourceful fellow.

So, today was the final day of pre-Laughlin futzing with the '40. Adjusted the steering box free-play. Turned out really nice! My buddy Bob came by and helped a ton. He prepped and painted the bottle jacks, crank rods, and lug wrenches for the '39 & '40. Been running around all these years with no jacks / lug wrenches. We will be a long ways out at thanks giving in one or the other of the cars, not to mention running out to Oatman at the P-Info meet.

Next on the agenda, make speedometer work. Pulled it out and tore it down. Never ever seen grease actually seize gears, shafts, and odometer. Soaked down in WD-40, cleaned, lubed, and coaxed the input shaft to smooth up and return to life. Since the car was driven with a seized speedo the cable was broken. In luck! Had the cable from the '39 that was replaced with a longer one after the overdrive was installed. Success! The speedo works great.

With that, the car was loaded and readied for the treck to our P-Info meet. Got the '39 out after a summer sabbatical and it roared to life. Will spend the duration of time making it ready.

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Must be running out of things to do in preparation for the fun run. Decided to change the spare tire. The Firestone that was mounted had to be 40+ years old, definitely not a reproduction. I have never seen a tire with more checks and cracks. I found a pair of new manufacture Firestone 7.00 X 16 black walls at a local swap meet a while back with the intent of using as spares. A quick job that will provide good piece of mind while out an about on future outings. One note worthy detail was the vintage porta wall on the spare. Couldn't resist re-using on the replacement black wall. I guess most folks haven't seen a porta wall in many years.

Other than that, just doing things like packing freshly re-finished Jacks, crank handles, and lug wrenches to the trunks of both cars. Used newer versions of the original style jacks.

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Love that old tire changer!

Is that a whitewall or blackwall tire going on?

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Ya, after 25 years of using a tire hammer and hand irons, I am really loving the tire changer. Even considering it is 70 years old, and manual, it really works great! I have seen so many rims destroyed by tire shops over the years that I won't have any tire work done by anyone else.

On the tires, actually both are black wall. The white wall is something called a porta wall. They were a JC Whitney type accessory that slipped into the rim between the tire bead and simulated a white wall. Really cheesy and not to my knowledge made in the last 30 odd years. Such a novelty, I couldn't resist re-installing on the fresh tire.

I drove a 1939 One-Ten while in high school (circa mid-1950s) and bought a set of Porta Walls to dress up the Packard. I remember it was difficult to get the Porta Wall to fit between the tire and wheel without some bulging as the tire tried to push out the Porta Wall from the wheel.

(o[]o)

Portawalls seemed to last until the first good pothole or curb climb--I know that I sure managed to do in more than one. Aside from the bulge you mention, there was also the little problem of it separating from the tire sidewall and sticking out. Rather amusing to follow someone down the road and see their portawall flopping around. There are remnants of a set on the 47 I have in the back yard.