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Quick video of my son showing some of the progress.

Doors coarsely in place and functioning without racking the rest of the body. I put the front seat back in place, just to get the spacing of the B-pillars close. The tops are prototyped in pine, as are some of the other bits. They will of course be made of ash once the bugs are worked out. For a finished car with less than 30 board feet of wood, I bet that I have used about 300 to get it this far!! My wife jokes that all I make is firewood and saw dust.


youtube.com/watch?v=R3T9GPSN2NI&feature=youtu.be

Ray,

It's been awhile. Any progress with the 526? I am following as I am just about in the same state of restoration with my 1028 526 in Gig Harbor, WA. Hope to have a rolling chassis this next month. Engine already overhauled and waiting for installation in the chassis. Body still not started so I am depending on your knowledge and experience.

Well,looks like more fun than a barrel of monkeys. My 526 also in need of extensive wood replacement. Own by same family 91 years. But sat since 50s.i just saw your blog. Sure wish u would have made patterns to sell to use non woodworking engineers. U could have sold them to inept people like me. If u can show as much detail as u can on your pieces and how u over came compound finger joints. Would be godsend.
Thank u for your service and thank u for your blog.
Ps.still time to take it back apart and make patterns to sell. Maybe I'll tell your wife,she will have your saw dust and cinduling operation turned into a money making operation.👍🤣

I've made very little progress over the last couple years, kids sports and I'm still in the reserve and youth officiating..., all to say, just life and priorities have put the project on the back burner, now with the "stay-at-home" orders, I've been dusting off old parts and such. Patterns? we don't need no stinking patterns. Seriously, my wood was damaged to the point that it was almost useless. I've relied mostly on the steel shell to recreate what was there.

Don't worry about the way that Packard made a joint, they made thousands and were concerned about production, you are making one. Some of their joints don't make any sense structurally, but they just needed to make long pieces out or shorter ones - for cost. What I have found most useful is that I make all of the initial pieces out of pine, 2x8s 4x4s etc. then once it is perfect, I make it again in the correct ash. The finished car is only about 30 bdft of ash, but trust me, I have thrown away hundreds of bdft of pine. I once took an entire week off work because I just couldn't get the A-pillars the way that I liked. I ended up with 3 pages of notes that detailed in which order certain cuts had to be made to accommodate odd angles. I don't have these notes anymore, and they really wouldn't help you anyway, as some were just work arounds for the shop equipment that I had at the time.

Good luck!

So I've had the engine back for about 18 months or so and just realized that I never posted pics of it's triumphant return.

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