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So there are other projects going on in the garage that unfortunately take priority at the moment. So when those main projects stall I find some time to work on the caribbean.

Over the summer on really hot days I noticed that the temp gauge needle would get a little past the vertical point. Where as the temp gauge in the patrician does not move from about the 10 O clock position regardless of temp or engine load. The patrician does have an extra row of tubes in the radiator (a/c car) and the 6 blade fan. Well I had a spare 6 blade a/c fan sitting around so I installed that. I will see if that helps this summer.

I went back to working on the top that doesnt like to go up. Well I checked the level and it was low. No obvious signs of leakage so I added more fluid, disconnected the rods and checked their operation. The rods moved up and down together fine and were shiny, but after the initial movement the reservoir was still low. OVER A QUART later, the fluid level stays where it should be. So I guess the system needed to be bled. Since this still has the rubber lines on it I am going to try the pressure test to insure it is at the right pressure before I try lowering and raising the top again. Like always, ran out of time before I could check the pressure at the ports.

my dad installed spot lights on both sides of the car and they worked at one point. But over time they started to work intermittently. Upon initial inspection it looked like there was a lot of wear and I would need to machine some pieces to fix the issue. Well I removed them the other weekend and found that is not the case.

so if I understand the operation properly. I removed the interior handles and it appears there are 4 separate tubes:




The inner brass looking tube I believe is the "hot wire" for providing power to the lamp, the tube that surrounds that is keyed with the gears in the handle that operate the left to right movement (which was always good). the third outer tube is where the handle fastens too (which I thought was the damaged part), which controls the rotation of the light around the axis of the shaft. However, it is not damaged and wont require repair work. it appears that the fastening provided by the fasteners clamps the handle to that tube and wasnt tighten enough to provide the clamping force to rotate the light. Which also plays into my next issue with the lights only working sometimes. Mentioned above the brass inner tube provides the power to the light. well I dont believe the handle was installed right allowing the brass part to not make sufficient contact with the switch or tightened properly to get the rotation movement working right:

This is the handle without the shaft installed:




not a great picture but shows how it should be seated to make appropriate contact with the switch:





Now, a couple questions:

How is the light grounded? is it grounded through the fender mount? or some other means?

Since I have the lights off the car, is there a way to separate all the inner tubes in the shaft to lube them up?

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Can pretty much guarantee it grounds through the fender. No real reason it should be a different way.

I was not able to separate more than the outer shaft from the spot lights. So I reinstalled them and electronically tested them. They do work well and consistently. I created a new wiring harness for them and just need to install the electrical switches into the handles before I can call this done.

In the mean time I was removing the window motors and regulators for grease and lube. All of them were lubed and greased and I am just waiting to test them. The car never had the window switches installed (besides the driver door) so I found some switches in my dads stash, tested them and cleaned them up so they should be ready to be installed.

Hopefully this weekend I will stop screwing around and just test the pressure of the top pump. I believe the pump should be okay but I am beginning to suspect that one of the lift cylinders is leaking. May not be by much, so I will have to see when I go about testing this stuff.

So it has been some time since I posted but some progress has been made! I was able to get the lift cylinders installed and bled. The top FINALLY goes down AND up again! pretty happy about that. Well, in celebration I decided to take it for a short ride and noticed that the right front brake was hanging up again. Well by the time I got it home and mostly in the garage the wheel was all but locking up. Well upon inspection it appears that the bonded brake Lining fell off of the shoes





Yea not good. So needless to say I have new shoes on order. Figured if this was the case with these, I better replace the ones on the patrician as well.

But in the meantime I also wanted to scrub the living hell out of the car. It sat for years in the garage due to a leaky freeze plug in preparation for a rebuilt engine. Then dad got sick the car sat some more. Got transfer to a shop to be worked on, that guy died and it went to Ross whom finally got it streetable. In all of that sitting and transferring the interior needed a spa day. So far it is looking pretty good.






Does anyone else remove the seat cushions for winter storage? My dad always did but I am not entirely sure why.

Another thing that kind of frustrated me about this car is how the front of the patrician looked so much better after being redone. So I removed the front bumper and grille to polish the mesh






It was painted by what I am guessing is my dad. But I think the mesh and freshly polished chrome turned out well






So the tires came in this week and hope to get those installed on the wheels this week as well. It needs an oil change and some adjustment on the mechanical brake switch and the suspension compensation lever. After that it should be ready for this season of driving (after the brakes are done of course)!

Mice.

That front end looks great! I need to do the same on my 400. Lots of work to get that done.

And I agree with PGH, he probably removed the cushions to prevent rodent damage. Most of us don't have that luxury of being able to remove the upholstery so we do what we can. Thankfully I haven't had issues at my place, but now that I've said that I've probably cursed myself.

Fortunately the newer stuff (synthetics, so including the later model Packard OEM) are naturally mice resistant. The wool cars are the ones where you have to be very careful. It doesn't help that those same cars aren't really sealed as well overall.

When I picked up my 400 there was honestly mouse droppings throughout the interior (obviously have cleaned it well since then) but not a bite out of anything, even the leather surfaces.

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I mean I guess that could be a good of a guess as any. But, to my understanding we have not had issues (knock on wood) with those critters in the garage it was stored in while growing up.

I don't know if I would make a blanket statement about mice not liking synthetics because my friend Mark found out differently. Almost everything is synthetic in this photo where mice had a fine old time setting up housekeeping over a winter. Mark was near Vancouver, WA at the time which is close to the Washington-Oregon border. Decided for some reason he needed to drop the pan again after the engine had been redone and was back in the car but did not have oil in it. He was not sure exactly how or where the mice got in but suspects there was just enough space for them to squeeze by the cam at the open fuel pump spot.

No one should store an open engine without oil... Also, for how long was it in storage? There is some serious oxidation taking place on the crank