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Monday 4th February 2008




Not happy!

Once again updated the blog and what happened? Lost the whole post thats what! So here goes again. And you know what - it happened again! Fortunately second time round I'd saved most of it, so all's not lost. Now - third time should be lucky.

After donating blood in the morning arrived at the workshop at 10:00am with only 2 hours available for Packard work, because I had to take my Mum for a medical appointment in the afternoon.

First up was removal of the left side rear end u-bolt nuts. This task was eventually accomplished but not before the exposed threads were wire- brushed, the nuts were loosened and re-tightened with the rattle-gun and also loosened and re-tightened with the long bar. These are the trials and tribulations of 70 year old Packard nuts, mind you Randy. However the left side was eventually finished after the right side and in contrast after a dose of penetrant and, voila, using a rattle-gun the right side nuts came off relatively easily!

Next the sway bar and its shock were removed as the mount to the rear end was welded to the diff housing and needed to be released before the rear end assembly could be removed. Should be pretty straight forward, you'd think? Noooooooo. Because of the position of the tapered mount access was very limited. Trying with a long lever and a hammer applied judiciously to the housing where the taper fitted together with liberal doses of penetrant was all to no avail. Then the Guru, aka Wade, came up with the idea of using the arm's securing nut to force the tapered shaft out. Brilliant - after putting the nut back on the shaft and taking it out so that a ring spanner could be used and slipped out for its next part rotation 2 pieces of steel were used to fill the void between the nut and the rear end housing. Then by turning the nut out, pressure was applied until with a hammer knock the shaft broke its 70 year old bonds - jubilation! Wade then prised the shock from where it had been left last week after having its nuts cut off. Now here was an even more straight forward removal situation you'd think. Remove the sway bar from the shock, out from under the confines and strictures of automobile architecture, easy? Again No. Couldn't be pressed out with the 20 tonner because of awkward angles and such. So to Wades steel vice to use as an anvil. While I held the bar with one hand and a long pry bar with the other, Wade wielded a hammer against the arm of the sway bar shock. Still no luck, until John came over grabbed a bigger hammer and proceeded to give a demonstration of how it should be done resulting in further jubilation as it released. As wade says "Theres nothing you can't do with brute force and dumb luck".

Now came removal of the complete rear end assembly. Earlier Wade had placed a small trolley jack under the nose of the diff so it wouldn't fall forward when all the nuts were undone. This he replaced with a large trolley jack under the centre of the housing and jacking it up until it cleared the springs. Then with Wade on the left side and me on the right this whole assembly was rolled towards Wade until I could lower my side past the inside of the right spring. Then the assembly was pushed toward me until Wades side could be lowered past the spring. The whole assembly was then lowered on the jack and manoeuvered by zigzagging and pushing and pulling until it was eventually pushed clear on my side of the '41. Wade and I then carried the rear end assembly and placed it behind the back of the '41 and then put it on stands with a lump of wood under the nose to keep it level. Both axles were then removed and marked in preparation for replacing the bearings and seals.

I'll take some pic's tomorrow of what came out and I'll try and recreate the Guru's nut and taper pushing exercise as I'm sure pic's will explain it better than I can.

Mal -

I've lost posts in mid-construct in more than one forum - even with online e-mail. Seems liek if it takes too long to compose a message, something in the software times out.

My best advice is to construct your message in a plain-vanilla text editor (like Notepad), save on your computer, then cut-n-paste it to the online. Yet, because I've lost many good thoughts even when working offline, I'd further recommend saving the file, periodically, as you compose it on your computer - a paragraph at a time, overwriting the existing file.

Computers are powerful tools, but far from perfect.

Tuesday 5th February 2008

Arrived at the workshop before Wade for a change, and started off by photographing the re-construction of the rear sway bar tapered pin removal process.

Proceeded then to scrape and wire-brush the diff housing and centre section to within an inch of their lives, well anyway they look a whole lot better now than they did before. The diff centre was then removed but only after a suggestion from John resulting it it being hooked and lifted by a bar while Wade hammered the housing and using screwdrivers finally prised the housing loose.

Also cleaned up the sway bar shock as I will have Tony "Shocks" look it over and weave his magic on it if required.

It was Wades last day before he goes to New Zealand tomorrow for the NZ Packard tour in the north island and in which Wade is driving a borrowed '24 (Psssst - It's got hydraulics with disc's on the front!) hopefully will post some pic's on his return. Then Wade and his wife Gina are holidaying in the south island before they return 1st March.

In Wades absence I will be scraping, wire-brushing, cleaning, preparing and painting the underside of the body and the frame together with the floor inside the '41. All to remove or prevent surface rust on these components. I'll also do this for any removed parts which haven't yet had the complete treatment. This will facilitate replacement and reassembly of the '41 after Wades return.

And Brian, thanks for the advice, but I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to these things!

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Wednesday 6th March 2008

Not much to report. Finished scraping rear end housing, sway bar and u-bolts and Marine Cleaned and Metal Readied them. Also scraped, wire-brushed and Marine Cleaned floor plate over the transmission and left rear "deflector" panel, if that is what you call the panel behind the rear wheel between body and inside of fender.

Rang Tony "Shocks" this morning and left a message to call me as I want him to cast a beady eye over the sway bar shock and rebuild it if required. Ordered a gasket for the diff housing when it is reassembled. And I think the front springs have arrived but as I was out Fed Ex didn't leave them only an advice of a missed delivery. However I have phoned Fed Ex and arranged for the delivery to be made tomorrow, home or not.

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Thursday 7th February 2008

Tony "Shocks" had called back last night and we arranged I'd drop the sway bar shock over this morning. Tony again gave me a lesson in shocks with most of it lost because of my ignorance together with Tony's accent. Pic's below are of the Sway Bar Shock and the backroom of Tony's workshop which has shelves and shelves of old shocks. Tony even produced a similar but bigger sway bar shock which was disassembled for reference purposes.

The other Packard related matter today was the arrival of the new front springs together with the missing king pin bushes. And last night I'd had an email from the wiring harness maker that they would soon be starting on the new harness. Wade if you read this while you're in NZ we now have just about everything required for the re-assembly process

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Friday 8th February 2008

No Packard work today but the parts keep arriving. The new hand brake cables and the electomatic clutch unit both being delivered by Australia Post. There was a small kerfuffle concerning the hand brake cable with an overzealous postal clerk identifying it had a value of US$1500.00 instead of the $15.00 declared, because the decimal point on the declaration form had been obscured by the a zero. However after I faxed a copy of the eBay order concerned they realised the error of their ways and released the package without further drama. I'm glad that Australia's customs and revenue interests are being safeguarded but I wish they wouldn't practice on my deliveries.

Monday it'll be back to undercar scraping and cleaning now that the diffs out.

Monday 1th February 2008

Spent the morning under the '41. First removed the rear shocks and for a change did not have to wrestle to get them out. That is after I found the right size spanner, as I'm not adept enough yet to look at a nut and say 3/4". Ahhhh - To be young again, as I had this skill 40 years ago but lost it through lack of practice over the years.

Than spent the rest of the morning scraping the underfloor area and the frame around the rear crossmember over the diff. Biggest difficulties in doing this are my bulk, about 230lbs at 5'8" so I'm about as wide as I'm tall, lack of light and wearing goggles that keep fogging up. This last is a necessity to keep your vision clear and avoid the accumulation of Idaho dirt, grease and crap that keeps raining down.

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Tuesday 12th February 2008

More scraping and brushing under the '41. Started above the tailshaft and worked out to each side then moved back behind the diff area. Starting to see some progress, but the frustrations of lying on your back with dirt, dust and greasy particles raining down on you is slowly taking the fun out of it. Amazing that the caked up dirt, or dirt and grease/oil mixture sometimes comes off in 2 or 3 layers or so it seems. So much so that I have to retrace my steps to check that all the goop is off. Returned home and had to wash up to ensure I removed all the facial and beard dirt before I had a shower!

I also took off the rod that bolts to the frame and to the underside of the transmission. One, to clean it up and two, to fix it, and the transmission, because the tranny end had sheared/snapped off and three, to ask a question.

The question is: Is this rod straight? Reason I ask, as you'll see from the pic below, is that the snapped/sheared end (the upper end in the pic) is bent back.

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Mal at first I thought you had been out in the Bush to long from that picture!

I actually have a picture of me like that when I was scraping out all the rotten interior and falling headliner insulation.

Wednesday 13th February 2008

Scraping, scraping and more scraping, little more than that needs to be said. Only 2 hours available this morning with that time spent under the trunk floor and the rear frame rails and end cross-member.