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The car I saw in '62 has sadly gotten a ground up restoration and now is two tone grey I believe. There can't be many around as there weren't many made.

O_D, thanks for the photo and comments. I figured the two vents were not stock and that they were positioned so as not to be effective.

However, I am still curious if a two vent setup on a 356 would be of benefit. Earlier there was a long discussion on PCV system on our straight eights. I will not get into that one except to say it would be interesting to see the results from a properly designed and installed system. JWL

The function and benefit of a PCV system is to lessen air pollution from blowby gasses. While of benefit to the environment it does not benefit the running or performance of the vehicle. If a car has excessive blowby then the rings are well worn, what the car needs is new pistons/rings.

Apologies if stating the obvious, but a PCV will function while an engine is running and stationary, as for example idling at a traffic light. The road draft tube only functions when the vehicle is in forward motion and the faster you go, the better it functions.

As I understand it, the original problem with the 356 crankcase ventilation was twofold. Because of the layout of the casting and resulting "pockets", air was trapped and unable to circulate freely to remove the moisture. The second issue was because of the oil filter present on that engine there was an area of turbulence behind the filter where the only air inlet to the crankcase was positioned. The turbulence was actually found to have caused a low pressure or suction effect with the round canister and original shape and height of the oil filler and vent cap.

First attempts to correct the problem raised the fill tube out of the worst area of turbulence but kept the original cap with vents on the bottom. That was not entirely satisfactory so the second attempt changed the cap to one with the vent on the side facing the fan in order to catch a bit of air flow. While that worked in conjunction with the suction effect of the draft tube while the car was moving, the oil filter turbulence was still present and caused the loss of ventilation when the car was stationary. To force ventilation when the car was not moving, the horizontal tube was added to catch air from the fan and blow it directly into the side opening on the fill cap.

IMO, adding PCV would help while the car was stationary but when the car is moving and utilizing the relatively large draft tube and the forced air from the horizontal tube I would wonder which would provide more flow. I don't know if PCV was available on Packard taxis of the prewar era. If so and would have been the better overall option -- even postwar when it was available, I would have thought Packard would have used it instead of all the time and engineering that went into the various fixes they did come up with.

Since they discontinued the horizontal tube toward the end of 356 engine production I wonder if it was ever that effective or else what they did to correct the interior ventilation problem.

Not a lot going on with the Packard the last couple months, but would figure I would do an update, worked on getting the frame completely cleaned.

Used a blaster with glass beads seemed to work well. Local greenhouse had pallets of plastic they were tossing that I retrieved from the trash pile a few years ago and used a small piece of one piece as a catch for the media, recovered quite a bit. Think I bought 2 or 3 50 lb bag and a small can probably have 2-2.5 bags left over after the last use. Recovered probably 75% plus.

Prepped it with POR metal prep, used power washer to clean it off. Applied 2 coats of POR 15 with a scotch brite scuffing between coats. That was in may, june and july too busy with house projects and work projects but I have managed in the last few days to get it scuffed ready for the final coat of POR Top Coat Flat Black. Figure the flat black will be a better match with what came out of the factory, seems like the POR 15 base coat is pretty glossy.

Starting to think about the parts I will need in the long run to complete the project. Seems like some of these senior parts are getting harder to find. Will check with the vendors on here but figure I will start a list and if anyone has something or a good lead on an item let me know. But I know I will need to replace:

1937 Packard 1500 Super 8 Touring Sedan Body 1003
1. Rear fenders (may be able to salvage passenger side, driver side is pretty rough)
2. Gas fill tube and cap
3. Fuel tank
4. Rear tail lights
5. Spare tire cover, need one side
6. Set of wheels
7. Set of hub caps
8. rear seat bottom
9. running boards, mine can probably be salvaged but if I could find better ones may.
10. Luggage rack, need everything, have one mounting bracket the other is bent pretty badly everything else missing.
11. and many others, just a start at a list, would like to avoid fiberglass parts if I can find metal decent shape ones.

After the frame gets its final coat by this weekend I guess I will start working on the front and rear end. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can start putting parts back together.

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