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Paint looks great! I love the way paint feels after it has been "clay bared" and waxed.
If you think there is some valve noise, you could check the valve lash. That is not a very fun job, but is do-able. You will feel like a graduate of packard maintenance school when you finish the job. I think with mechanical lifters, there will usually be a little more noise than a modern car with hydraulic lifters. But before going through the effort of adjusting the valves, a gas tank or two of MMO would be easy to try.

I believe the 1954 Panama had hydraulic lifters and they tend to quiet down with use unless totally worn out. If worn out, you would know it by now as they (or it if only one) would be loud and not quiet down much, if at all.

Thanks Mike and Don. The car has mechanical lifters (I checked) and I don't know when the last time was that the valves were adjusted. It's definitely on my to-do list but I'm not opposed to doing some additives to see if I can help keep my sticky valve clean.

-Kevin

I've been doing a few more small things to the car in between taking it out for runs. I finally replaced the old heater hoses with black (old ones used to be red, but were mostly brown). NAPA didn't have the correct wire style hose clamps, so I just used screw type for now.

I'm running straight water in the cooling system right now while I check for leaks. I've been running water only for about a month now since I've been messing with the heater core and heater valve. During my drives today I didn't see any leaks, and I turned the heat all the way up to get water moving through the replacement heater valve and new hoses. All looked dry. I'm assuming that water was actually going through.

Car still tends to get a little warm when driving. Not much, but the needle moves up past half. Temp gun on the top of the head shows a range from 180-192 directly over the spark plugs, with the higher readings being around cylinders 6-8. Ambient temps aren't helping. Today's drive was in 93 degrees. I'm hoping that coolant will help keep it cool. Temp gun on all parts of the radiator shows pretty even distribution.

I double checked the timing and it looks like it's hitting at 6-7 degrees BTDC at idle. I wondered if the car was running lean, so I hooked up a vacuum gauge and it looks like I'm pretty low. About 14-15. Messed with the idle screws, but couldn't get it above that. How do I improve vacuum?

Perhaps the exhaust is part of it? I seem to have excessive vapors coming out the road draft tube when sitting....maybe the exhaust isn't flowing out the system like it should?

Also noticed that once that car is really warmed up the idle speed is lower, so much so that the oil pressure seems low. When warmed up at low idle (engine is very quiet except for my ticking valve) the pressure is below 20. When first starting the car at high idle it's closer to 25. When driving at 30-50 mph it's 30-32. Normal?

I finally filled the tank all the way up to see what the gauge would do. Went to just above half. So once the needle drops below a quarter tank I'll just fill it up. Eventually I'll have to tackle that problem, but I really don't want to drop the tank again anytime soon.

Went to a local cruise-in on Saturday. The straight 8 attracted a lot of attention. Lots of Chevy's and Ford's here but only one Packard. Lots of heads turning when I drive it.

Took my boys out for a spin today after hooking up all heater hoses, then took all the girls out to lunch at a burger joint. Again, lots of heads turning (all the guys) and one person at the restaurant even knew what year and make it was. He's the first one to ever get it right.

Lastly, one year ago my friend and I were cutting the old rusted windshield header out. Lots has happened in a year! I'm so happy to be driving the car now. I only wish that I could have taken my Dad for a drive before he passed.

-Kevin

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Sounds like you are having fun Kevin. Must be a great feeling to have the car on the road.
John

The oil pressure is fine. When the engine is hot, 10 psi at idle is still good, and pressure is limited to 35psi at driving speed. Nothing to worry about with the oil.
For the vacuum, that is a little low. You could cap off the vac lines going to the brakes, Choke and wipers and see if one of those is leaking more than it should.
Does altitude make a difference on vac readings? How high up are you?
Oh, and also try a second vac gauge. I also have a gauge (Stewart warner) that reads 3 inches low. You might have the same thing.

John - thanks, yes it's great to be driving finally. Brings a smile to my face every time.

Mike - Thanks for the confirmation on the oil pressure. I thought it was still okay, but wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

Good call on capping off various vacuum lines. The line going down to the master cylinder was capped off long ago when the Treadle Vac was removed. It's possible that it's leaking there, or really anywhere along those lines. The needle was bouncing a good bit too, which from what I understand is not what I want to see. Probably was moving 1 mmHg when it bounced.

-Kevin

What Tobs said s correct. If you have an oil pressure sensor that triggers over 10psi, it will flicker when hot at idle.

I had the same issue when I replaced mine with a new one which was 18 or 20 psi. So I had to put in a 10psi one. Now it no longer happens.

Here is the official Packard word from the 54 owners manual. Virtually the same statement is given for all years and models that used a light. Some who have not wanted to see any flicker have resorted to a 6psi sender and in fact, that is the recommended sender according to one auto parts site.

While the light will still come on at a complete failure one downside to a sender that does not indicate until oil pressure falls below a low 6 psi could be that by the time the light goes on in case of a problem, the pressure could have been running lower than normal for a long period of time and you would have had no warning.

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Thanks Kev and Howard. That is what I had understood from the manual. I guess I am just surprised that it's okay that the pressure can be as low as 6 PSI at idle. Mine is definitely not that low. My light has never flickered....and the light itself does work.


Tackled a couple things today on my day off. First, I was still getting this annoying fuel leak at the front where the hard line attaches to the flex line to the pump. A new flex line didn't solve it. So I decided to replace the fitting on that end of the hard line.

This required me to cut the end of the hard line off. I then used a short 2" length of high pressure fuel hose to form a junction between the original hard line and a new line, fitting and flare. For good measure I applied a thin layer of Permatex fuel-rated thread sealant to the fitting. Worked like a charm....no more fuel leak there and it was way easier to get the fittings connected.

Close inspection of the original flare showed a very small crack line that is hard to detect. Especially with the fuel line being in the location that it is. My guess is the rear has something similar going on.

I will do the same to the rear once I burn through most of the fuel in the tank. It's definitely not the best fix, but it will do for now. Eventually I will replace the whole fuel line from to back.


Also drained out all the water I had in the cooling system. I haven't seen any leaks from anywhere in the system, so I felt confident enough to put in real coolant now. I filled the whole thing up with 50/50 from Napa. Took it for a long test drive tonight when I finally had a minute. Ambient temps were 75-78. Temp gauge moved between the end of the "E" to the middle of the "M", speeds ranged from 25-55mph. I was hoping for a more stable reading at the "E", especially since it wasn't hot outside. I worry about driving more than a few miles in the day. We've been in the 90's for over a month now with no sign of letting up.

Timing is right on (as far as I can tell), vacuum advance works. New 160 thermostat, new cap, no leaks seen anywhere. What is the next place I should look to improve my cooling system? Belts have not been changed, exhaust is what was on it when I got it.

-Kevin

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