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I'm restoring my packard and I'm trying to evaluate weather to take the engine out and maybe give it a ring job and change the valve guides, but it may not be necessary. I got a little bit of blue smoke when I started it up after 12 years. But I noticed there is a pipe sticking out of the right side of the engine and pointed down. AS the engine runs, smoke comes out of it. Is this normal, or is this blow by?

That's the breather pipe, and you do have blowby. The air comes in through the oil filler cap, and is moved by the crankshaft rotation to force the air out the breather pipe. If you're gonna re-ring it, you might as well get the valves done, and if you're doing the valves, you might was well put new bearings in it, and if you're gonna do that...... You get the idea!

Pap Franklin,

If you started it after 12 YEARS of silence, you might want to service and run it a bit more, taking it reasonably easy. As Mal said the rebuild-road can be a long sequence becoming a TOTAL re-manufacture (which you may want to do and have time, space, talent, money and connections to do).

However, as a low budget amateur, myself, with an older-restored Packard, I think mine is running better as I keep driving it (reasonably) and servicing it as it needs it. My Clipper has been silent for nearly 20 years before I found it last Sept 07 and got it back on the road. It depends on what you want and what your Packard it telling you.

One nice part about Kev's PInfo website is the chance to get advise from guys (down under, or otherwise) like Mal who have been listening to and watching and tinkering, with Packards for a lot longer than I have.

So Keep askin' ...

DanL

Correction:
'Guys like ERIC and Mal'
[I was just on another forum with Mal and had a 'Mal'function. i do a lot more of that as I get older! Guess I am just like my Packard.]

Mal-DanL

Actually, I think I once saw a guy that liked the quote that went,
"Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most ..."

DanL

If the car has just been started after 12 years don't be too much in a hurry to rebuild the engine yet. A little blowby is to be expected with any engine and with an engine that has sat for years quite a lot can be expected. In the era before positive crancase ventilation the road draft tube was how the engine eliminated crankcase emissions and visible blowby was a fact of life. My advise is to first
decide what you are going to do with the car before expending money to rebuild an engine that may still perform adequately for your needs. I would remove the oil pan and clean up the sludge that may be there as well as the oil pickup screen and then with fresh oil and a good tune up if needed, drive the car a few hundred miles and reassess whether or not a total engine rebuild is required. You may find that the engine blowby has been reduced simple by giving the engine some exercise. If you are like me and only plan on taking the car to local shows, cruise nights and the occasional Sunday drive a little blowby or oil burning is of no real concern and the car will perform well enough like this for many years saving you thousands of dollars on an unnecessary rebuild. On the other hand if you plan on touring on long highway trips then perhaps a rebuild would be justified.

PapFranklin,

All these posts are sage advice. Especially cleaning out the pan/sump and running it for a while. I resurrected a 30 Chevy that went from 2psi oil pressure to 15psi after I pulled two inches of goo out of it's pan. IMHO once you get a few miles on your car, you need to check the compression. Equally diminished compression across all the cylinders is much more livable than one or two really low readings. That will give you some good data as to whether or not to embark on an expensive rebuild.

Just my

Scott

Sage advise indeed, for PapFranklin or any of the rest of us. I dropped the pan on my Clipper (after 3 hrs of figuring out to loosen the steering idler arm, duh). The pan was actually pretty free of sludge, BUT I would never know that w/o looking inside first.

The main things I am learning is respect for this old beast and technical/mechanical know-how on what to do/check next. I know it can be trite but, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If you want a new car, but it or build it.

In the meantime, enjoy getting to know the old one.

DanL

Quote:

THAT has to be one of the funniest thing's I've read on here in a LONG time, mind if I use it??

Thank you all for your advice. I let the engine run for about 1/2 hour the first day. The second day I ran it another 1/2 hour and I got less blow by than the first. I'm going to remove the oil pan as suggested put slightly heavier oil. I don't recall seein an oil filter though. Does this engine have one?