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Monday 7th September 2009

I'm actually writing this on Tuesday, on my wife Kath's PC, because being an indulgent grandfather I allowed my granddaughter to play with the keyboard of my laptop yesterday. Now I can access PackardInfo but, among other things, can't see any pictures here, the flags denoting read and unread posts are "missing" and I can't make posts or edit because there are no buttons to do so! But how could I resist a three year old who'd said to me on Sunday, Father's Day here in Oz, "Happy Father Christmas Day Poppy"? I've already been in contact with BigKev and my local tech support, eldest son Luke, but so far to no avail. In the meantime I'll continue through the medium of Kath's PC.

So yesterday arrived at the workshop late morning, after donating blood plasma, to find Wade loading the window glass for the '34 into his Ute. Then it was off to Ralph Moore Autoglass at Mascot, the same bloke who did the glass on my '41. Just across the street from Ralph's shop was a 20's Chev Tourer, pic's attached. Ralph is going to cut all new glass and fit them to frames and channels where required. Speaking of which, Wade hadn't brought one of the channels, and the screws for the vent window frames, so my eldest son Luke dropped these in to Ralph today because Luke works right around the corner from him! Anyway, just after arriving back at the workshop yesterday, received a call from Kath to say come home because the granddaughters were coming over, little did I know what damage would be done.

When I left Wade yesterday, he was talking about pulling the manifold off Old Blue again because he's still not happy with it. We'll see tomorrow when I get back to the workshop, this time in the '41 because I'm going to check it over before our PACA run on the weekend. We're going to Port Macquarie, about 400km's north of Sydney, travelling in convoy from MacDonald's at Thornleigh which is near the start of the northern freeway. And next week, I'll post a link to the pic's I'll take of the run.

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Good on you Mal, Have a good trip North and say hello to the troops from me. I wish that I was able to make it but it is a bit busy down here work wise. On the Packard front, I have just re-done the front suspension on the 38-327 Richards, also fitting roller bearings to the steering crank, it worked out great.
BTW. If Wade is considering removing the manifold again, I would suggest that it is easier to remove the studs at 1 and 8 Inlet and 1 and 8 Exhaust to remove the manifold. The same but much simpler with the six cylinder models. I have never found it necessary to remove the steering box on RHD.
It is also most important to tighen up the manifold to block joint gasket to about 25 ft lbs, before the manifold to exhaust joint is secured, otherwise an out of line exhaust will cause all sorts of distortion and leaks, in my experience. If the exhaust is misaligned, it may be necessary to adjust the exhaust pipes, not make the manifold absorb the torsional stress. Best Regards peter Toet

Wednesday 9th September 2009

Took the Coupe to the workshop this morning in order to ready it for the 400km trip on Saturday to Port Macquarie. Was able to use Rick's hoist for the grease and oilchange, makes it a lot easier. Drained the oil, put in a new filter, filled up with new oil, about 7 litres, topped up all the grease fittings and also a visual inspection of suspension, steering and other visible components. Only one minor drama, in greasing the lower left front suspension pin, the cap with the grease nipple was forced out by the hydraulic pressure of greasing it. Easily fixed, remounted in place and some brute force to respread the cap and done! Next job was to remove, clean and re-gap the sparkplugs and also a spare set Wade had on the shelf I'll take with me on the run this weekend. Lastly muted the blinker by taping over the audio beeper. Kath will be pleased because it was quite loud, like a truck reversing but in the confines of the Coupe's interior!

While I was doing that Wade was cleaning various small component parts for the '34 in readiness for painting. Wade had also received a parcel containing Noel's '39 120 clock from Barry Smith whose brother had re-built it. Noel(tabletemnnisport), if you read, this there a pic of the clock below. And on the way home dropped Wade off at Ivan's because he needs a bolt machined for the '34's cowl vent. One of the two bolts it pivots on is broken and, with quite a thick shoulder, is definitely NOT an over the counter item.

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Peter,

I'll pass on your regards, the run will be all the poorer for Ann and your absences. Regarding the manifold situation, Wade is happier with it now, and is taking Old Blue home in peak hour tonight to give it a rigorous test.

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Mal, Glad to see your browser is operational again!

Kev,

Not yet, haven't had my hands on tech support guy(eldest son) look at my laptop yet. Still using the good wife's PC in the meantime.

Yes, say hello to David and Margaret for us. It would have been good to see them again, but we had some clashes (one of which didn't happen......oh well)

Have a good trip all.

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John,

Will do, pity you couldn't make it but there's always next year. However there will be a little bit of "Appin" accompanying us on the trip, courtesy of Annet's creative fingers, because the running boards won't be recovered in time.

And Kev,

Picture and access problems solved by #1 son tonight. A box had been checked so I couldn't see pic's. Will have to ensure the little angel keeps her distance from the keyboard in future.

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Friday 11th September 2009

Arrived at the workshop to find Wade washing "Old Blue" in preparation for the weekend run to Port Macquarie. While he continued with that I readied the cleaned up '34 parts and my new accelerator pedal for my '41 for POR-15'ing. But yesterday Wade, after a horror trip home on Wednesday evening in the peak hour traffic, again pulled the manifolds off "Old Blue" and again replaced the manifold gaskets. Although it's been said before, this time it appears successful! The mating surfaces were checked with a straight edge and no irregularities were found and the gaskets this time appear to be thicker than the ones previously used, and so far so good. Noel also came in yesterday to have Wade install the rebuilt clock in his '39 120. Noel had also brought over a gear lever boot for my '41. Methinks it's the one he was going to use on his '41 but, seeing that's a fair way from completion, I'm able to utilise it and I'll procure him a replacement. Noel was also looking forward to seeing the Coupe's running boards after their coating with the polyurethane ute bed lining, wouldn't we all? But they're not going to be done till next week now, so hope he can wait till then. Now I'm off to emulate Wade and give the Coupe a clean before tomorrow's journey.

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Wednesday 16th September 2009

Called into the workshop to drop off DavidM's newly balanced Maxwell Flywheel and found that 4 new Coker WWW's had arrived for Big Red. There was also a power steering setup for Paul's '54 convertible and a tow bar for Barry's '51 convertible. Wade had picked these up when he collected my WWW's a little while back but they'd been boxed up. Wade had recently opened up the box thinking he might take the tow bar up to Port Macquarie, but it didn't happen. Took some pic's of all these for posterity. Reason I mention taking pic's is that yesterday I'd taken my digital camera into the Canon repair centre to be told it'd take 2 to 4 weeks to replace or repair. So I was quite surprised to receive a phone call less than 24 hours later saying the camera would be replaced under warranty and that I could pick up the replacement at any time. Even the guys on the service desk, when I picked up the replacement, were amazed that it happened so quickly! Just as well it was because I was almost in "camera withdrawal" - it's a standing joke that when I'm around the camera's a'flashing. I think I just plain wore it out, I took something like 3,500 pic's in a bit less than 4 months.

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Received an email from Barry Smith, edited copy below, following his return to Tamworth in the '51 convertible along with a couple of pic's, the captions of which are Barrys. Tamworth being about 250 miles north west from Sydney is not exactly Wade's workshop, but by extension, if Wade is upside down under a Packard that qualifies it for "Wade's Workshop"!

"......Problem now fixed, fuel tank pickup point was right on the tank floor, so even a small amount of debris blocked it off. We lifted the pickup tube about 1/2 an inch, problem solved. (Thank goodness, we had to stop some 20 time coming home from Port, and reverse blow back into tank to temporarily clear problem. I HATE the taste/smell of petrol, and I smelt like the inside a an empty 44 when we finally reached Tamworth)"
Barry

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