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Monday 21st December 2009

Summer solstice here in Oz today, I know, another piece of non-Packard useless information, so back to the chase. Donated blood plasma this morning then off to the workshop. There I found Wade talking to a guy and his daughter. Turns out the guy is Rick and I'd spoken to him on the phone on Saturday. Rick had been referred to me by "Big Bad Barry", PACA's Vice-President, Barry has been touring around Oz for the last 7 months and felt a bit out of touch with the local Packard scene. Rick is interested in buying a Packard or Buick Coupe so, putting aside Buicks, Packard Coupes are not usually readily available in Oz but, at the moment, there is a '37 115c Coupe and a '39 Convertible Coupe for sale in Sydney! They belong to PACA members Wendy and Richard and I provided Rick with a copy of the For Sale notice for "Emily", the '37 115c, so he can contact them if he's interested. And it turns Rick knows Vince, the guy Harvey works for and on whose two '39 Coupes Harvey's currently working on, Rick and Vince actually went to school together! But Rick didn't know Vince had Packard Coupes so he's going to contact him too. Small world! And Rick tells me he went and visited Harvey who'll sell his '37 Super8 Club Sedan to the right buyer.

But now really, back to the workshop. Wade went under the Coupe and undid the last bolts holding the trans in, and the trans crossmember bolts, speedo cable, front universal joint and the gear linkage I couldn't reach. I rounded up the engine crane and undid the front motor mount from the front crossmember. I also removed the top of the trans to provide more "wriggle" room when taking it out in concert with the engine. A trolley jack had also been placed under the trans to assist in the engine/trans/OD combo liftout. While I was removing carpet, underfelt, trans cover and trans top bolts, Wade was making up some hefty steel straps to bolt to the head studs to use as anchor points for the lift. So with Wade under the coupe controlling the jack under the trans and me operating the engine crane raising it, or pulling it as required together with some help from Graham guiding the engine out, the combo came out without a hitch. Then came further dismantling, bottom cover of bellhousing and clutch spring disengaged, trans complete with OD separated from bellhousing, clutch off(flywheel and pressure both marked first), flywheel off, bellhousing off, front engine mount off, sump off, timing cover off, timing chain and gears off(looks like the timing chain was starting to come apart!), oil pump off, oil pickup off and pistons and rods out. That's about all I think, although I could have missed something. Reason I remember is because mostly I was the one doing the wrench work. Wade's philosophy is, if it's your Packard you do as much of the work as you can on your own car. That's within reason of course, and under his supervision too, and I must say you learn a lot more hands on rather than helping.

Stop Press! Forgot to include this in my original post, the last pic below being sent to me yesterday by "The Flackmistress" aka the wife of PackardInfo member, flackmaster.

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Tuesday 22nd December 2009

Wade was already working on removing the main bearing caps when I arrived today. After they were off the crank was lifted out and then the block and crank were loaded into Wade's ute. Off to see Graham Wilkins for measuring of bores and crank journals. Found the bores to be somewhere in the vicinity of 0.090" oversize, looks like the pistons were about 0.075" over plus wear! Action here is to sleeve it back to standard with new pistons, pins, rings, etc. While the crankshaft was quite good on both the mains and big-ends and will clean up with a 0.10" grind. While there JohnL, the guy who made Wade's aluminium fuel tank for Old Blue and the Stainlees Steel muffler for the '34, came in to see Graham. Turns out John knew GordonD, an old friend of mine from years gone past, but it turned out Gordon died about 4 years ago which I was very sorry to hear. Gordon was a great bloke who helped me in my early days with Model A Fords, Hot Rods and Dragsters. In fact the first dragster Gordon built, was for himself, powered by a Model A engine with two huge sidedraft carburettors off a German armoured car engine and was pictured in Hot Rod Magazine back in about 1967 when about 5 US Top Fuel and Gas dragsters made a tour of Australia, included Tony Nancy in one of his Buick powered 22jr cars, Ron Colson in a blown small block Chevy, Bob Keith in a blown big block Chevy, George "Bushmaster" Schrieber in Ed Roth's Yellow Fang. Before that it was just local cars with very few imported US cars running the quarter mile here.

But enough of the nostalgia fest and back to Packards. Back at the workshop removal of the remaining engine components still on or in the engine commenced. Valves, springs, keepers, camshaft and lifters out, then head stud removal. Seeing this was relatively straight-forward this task was delegated to me and I managed to snap off only one stud in the removal process! Not to fear, Graham Wilkins can have the removal of the broken stud as part of his brief in the rebuilding process. But back to the valves, will replace all the valves as well as use new valve springs in the rebuild and k-liners used in the valve guides. Will also have hardened seats inserted and new cam bearings. After almost all was apart we sat down and Wade composed a list of the parts required which he'll order tonight. Then comes the hard part, paying for it all!

And a few things I missed mentioning yesterday. Wade returned John's '39 110 to him on Sunday and John was pleased and impressed with the performance now available! And yesterday morning Wade had picked up Big Red's crankshaft, flywheel and clutch from Parry's Engineering. Wade also picked up the rebuilt front shocks for Noel's '41 160 Club Coupe apparently they were completely shot, not something a refill of fluid would have cured!

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Sorry to hear your bores were so far out, but at least it is fixable with the sleeving. Be able to keep the original engine that way.

I was at the very first grand nationals many moons ago, and didn't realize the significance of it at the time. Should have paid more attention :)

Tuesday 29th December 2009

Not a very exciting day, well except for falling in the pool this morning! After that, and having to have a shower and drying out the contents of my wallet, it really was a dreary day. Why? Because I was cleaning parts. Cleaned some of the larger parts off the engine, the bellhousing, and the trans crossmember. Only other thing of note was that Harvey's '40 Willys re-pro grills arrived today, he'll be very happy.

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Mal, I knew you were old, but damn! Oh well, at least you're still younger than Phil!

Quote:

Hurrumph!!!

Point being, for those few of us that think Mal is a bit addicted to communication, that it may not be his fault, the historical display proving ancestral genes may be at work...Mal's having evolved into the internet age may not be his fault!

Wednesday 30th December 2009

More cleaning today, this time smaller parts, nuts/bolts, etc, but did start scraping down the trans and overdrive. Did find a broken valve spring and one of the upper star valve spring seats, well that's what I'm calling it. Hadn't noticed these in disassembly being that they were caked in gunk. And Harvey came over to pick up his new repro '40 Willys grill. Also lent Harvey the fuel pump heat shield off the '41 because he wants to fabricate a couple for the two '39's under his stewardship. Don't know how it'll match up because the '41 doesn't have a vacuum pump while the '39's do but at least he's got something to work with.

Quote:Gerd,

If there had been a snake in the pool I can assure you I would have been just like your lizard friend!

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What you're calling a star washer was used to prevent rotation of the valve spring and keeper assembly.

31st December 2009

New Years Eve and what am I doing? Why, still scraping and cleaning Packard parts! Continued on the seemingly never ending journey of parts cleaning, doing more nuts/bolts and the trans and OD. Before I started though I had a look at the '38 trans I picked up from John, he of the '39 110 engine transplant, some months back. Thought it might have a good trans mount to replace the mount on the '41 which has separated. It was not to be though, because the left side mount on the '38 trans was also separated while the right side mount is badly perished and separating too.

Quote:Dave,

Learning all the time! My Packard education continues.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

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