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Trunnion Block,
I should have checked before stating that the trunnion blocks were on the LHS on my 1929's. I just checked , both cars have the trunnion blocks on the RHS same side as the steering box. These Packards were fully manufactured in US as RH drive cars before export to Australia.
Sorry about the misinformation.
As for the origin of the idea, I would suspect that Beverly Kimes was aware of the much earlier comments by Turnquist and her research revealed different information. Interesting.
David

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And why don't they fit? Because they appear to be for '48 - '51 Packards as I just found on eBay! See pic's

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Those 'bolt and sleeve' after market links are pretty common. I got a pair from NAPA that were for a '59 Impala... saved the neoprene? grommets and threw the rest in my spare bolt bucket. The whole NAPA kit cost way less than buying the individual grommets from specialized suppliers and they fit my '50 Packard very nicely.

Tuesday 9th September 2008

Had a call from Harvey last night to say the dash is finished and I could pick it up. Picked it up tonight and it looks GREAT. It'll be the best part on the '41!

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Wednesday 10th September 2008

Arrived at the workshop to find Wade sorting through some old clothing and linen he'd brought back from Gilgandra which is about 280 miles North West. While Gina and Wade were there visiting Gina's 89yo Mum, Wade had cleaned out the shed, taking eight loads to the local tip, but had saved the clothing and linen for use as shop rags. Showed Wade the rivets I procured for him last week and he approved of the sample one. Also showed him the connectors I bought and the rivets too, but my rivets proved to be too long for the job. So I left to see Richard and pick up the "approved" rivets for Wade and to try and find some shorter rivets for myself. Mission accomplished, except the rivets I got had larger heads but I thought I could grind them down to suit.

Then it was on to photographing Richard and his cars and along the way hearing stories about them. Including back to the original owner in the case of the '24 Vauxhall 30/98 and some of the features and fittings adorning it. Richard is the only Top Bow maker in the Australasian region, and regarding Packards, he tells me he made a set for a Twin Six from Denmark, one of only 2 known of that particular model. He made them from photographs and measurements only, not having the old ones for patterns! All in, I spent a very enjoyable hour and a half there with Richard, most of which was just talking and photographing and getting immersed in his cars, stories and Top Bows after the rivet business was done. I've included a link below to my Picasa webpage which contains the pic's from today. There are some very interesting pic's there especially of some of the '24 Vauxhall 30/98's features. One of those pic's is of an original conrod, but Richard has had new conrods made in England from aluminium as the original duralium ones can fail over time.

Then it was off to Dick Smith Electronics for the replacement Tilt Switch for the boot light only to be told it was a discontinued line but a similar one might be available from Jaycar Electronics. Back at the workshop Wade said he'd check out Jaycar, and tonight I did too, so no doubt I'll be off to see them in the near future. Then to the new rivets to be used as wiring contacts. I offered my suggestion of grinding down the heads but, after some consideration, Wade came up with the idea of putting them in the drill press and using a file to bring the heads down to an acceptable size. And..... it worked, spent a half hour or more chucking up the rivets and applying a file to them as they rotated in the drill press! See pic's. And last, I have included a couple of pic's of dipsticks for Eric following on from our Chat Room session last night. And I've emailed Richard a link to this post and asked him to advise of any errors I've made in my comments or captions, so these may be updated in the near future.

EDIT - Link to Picasa album now included
picasaweb.google.com/ozstatman/WadeSWorkshopSept08#

Further EDIT - Picture fixed

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Dipstick looks just like the one I won on eBay, hopefully it works with minor to little modification on my 327!

Thursday 11th September 2008

A infamous day. I was up early that day in 2001 and heard the news on the radio so switched on the TV and saw the amazing live scenes in New York and at the Pentagon. Never to be forgotten.

Couple of hours at the workshop this morning during which we (using the royal plural here, as it's really Wade with Mal helping here and there) fitted the new stop and taillight wires with the filed down rivets. I refiled all the rivets this morning to reduce the head size again as some were bigger than others but took them all down and it didn't take long so I must be getter better at that. But the whole exercise this morning took considerable time because of the very hands on nature of the work, tinning the wire, cleaning the hollow inside of the rivet, soldering the rivets to the wire, filing off the overflow of solder from the rivets, wrestling the insulator disc and the completed soldered-up wires into the bulb socket so that the stop and taillight contacts are in the correct position and not 180 degrees out, to name some of the steps taken, etc, etc. Then, while Wade went for a walk around to Repco the local parts store and from which he returned empty handed, I installed the taillight housings, housing to fender gasket, rubber grommets, taillight retaining plates and fed the stop and taillight wires through the already grommetted holes in the trunk floor.

Next Tuesday Wade leaves for Canada and the US including Hershey, so for the next 6 weeks this narrative is going to be fairly sparse. There isn't much that I can do without Wades advice and guidance so until then I might get to the workshop only once or twice a week. I will be chasing a few parts still needed so that they are to hand when work in ernest resumes. And even then Kevin's '35 need to be finished, which shouldn't take too much, and the rebuilt trans for John's '39 should have arrived from the US. What I will do is compile a list of the work remaining on the '41 and post a copy here, no doubt missing something major along the way. There will be a few things I can manage un-aided and I'll do those of course.

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Turbo -- so you're the dirty rotten scoundral that aced me out by $0.50 on that dipstick :D

Phil you should have bid a little more, I only bid it up to $15.99! LOL!

Nice work on the bulb sockets and the dash is gorgeous! I toast you with two rootbeers.