Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Hi! I have been looking for a Packard forum for some time and I just stumbled across this one today. It looks great!

I have a 1940 Packard 110 that was given to me some years ago by my grandparents. Their last name is Packard so they made sure to own a Packard. Anyway, I finally got around to start working on it and I could not remove the oil pan. The oil pump pickup and a cross-member keep it from going anywhere.

Is anybody here familiar with this? Is pulling the engine the only way to remove the oil pan?

Thank you and I look forward to being an active member of this forum!


-John

Of course the oil pan comes off without removing the engine. You might consider checking the shop manual, but often you need to rotate the crankshaft a bit to get the clearance for the plan to come down.

On my '54 I had to jack the front of the engine off it's mounts to be able to have enough clearance to both remove the bolts, and also to wiggle the pan out.

I tried to spin the crankshaft but I couldn't get a wrench on the harmonic balancer. Does the radiator need to be removed for that?

It seems that the crankshaft is not holding the radiator,but I would like to try to spin the engine by hand to get an idea of its condition. When I drained the oil pan I found a good amount of water, which has me worried. It wasn't rusty, but there must be rust somewhere.

I'll try jacking up the motor to get some more clearance.

Thanks for your comments!

-John

Assuming the engine isn't frozen, you should be able to turn it over a bit by either (a) taking out the spark plugs, grabbing the fan belt to tighten it, and turning the fan by hand. That failing, (b) drop the clutch cover and turn it using the teeth in the flywheel. Special tools are made for this, but you can also (gently) use a large screwdriver into the gear teeth and fulcrumming on the bell housing edge near the flywheel.

If you don't succeed with either method, most likely your engine is frozen. That normally occurs when piston rings rust to the cylinder walls, though it can get much worse than that. You could remove the cylinder head and put some of your favorite snake oil on the top of the pistons, allow it to soak for a week or so, and try (again, GENTLY) tapping on one or more of the piston heads that is neither fully up or fully down. A product known as PB Blaster would be a great choice for a rust buster, others prefer using ATF fluid. Forget WD-40 for this purpose.

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Yeah, you could find this:

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Turbopackman, was that your engine? That would be a terrible thing to find! It looks like that engine was used as a boat anchor.

Owen_Dyneto, thanks for the tips. My fan belt is hard and rotted, so I'll try the flywheel method. Thanks for suggesting some rust removers. I probably would have tried WD-40!

-John

John,

If your front engine mount rubber has deteriorated badly you could jack up the front of the engine and then support it so that there is sufficient clearance between the pan and the drag-link. The crank pulley could even be sitting on the nut of the steering crank pivot if the engine mount is sufficiently deteriorated thus preventing the engine from turning. The jacking could be done by undoing the bolts for the engine mount where it bolts to the chassis, jacking up the engine then inserting wooden blocks under the engine mount "feet" to hold it sufficiently high. You should then be able to drop and wiggle the pan out.

John, yes that's my "new" 327 I just bought last weekend. If you check out my Speedster blog in the Project Blogs, you can see more of the destruction. I think the guy I bought it from salvaged it from the Titanic!