Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

Hey, nice picture of your feet. I see you wear black shoes too!

AND socks!

I dont think I have ever seen Randy (both in pictures and in person) in anything other than black! I think thats his signature!

RB. U mite want to consider pop-rivets rather than spot welding. Use steel pop rivets. Be careful to shield the radiator core from drill bits when drilling. Spot welds are ok for quick production or some metal finishing areas but not as desireable for strength nor holding up to vibration. Spot welds or any weld is very poor endurance against vibration compared to rivets.

Randy has been know to wear black on occasion. I little mig weld in the holes would be easier. I know that Randy has access to a mig welder at the secret Bat Cave he is using for his new car which happens to be black I see a trend here.

Randy,

Good to see you're putting Al to work on the Caribbean.

And Al,

Good to see you're getting your hands dirty on a Packard.

Not sure if I can agree with rivet being stronger that a good quality weld. A rivet is a mechanical connector that holds the two peices in place with a clamping force from the deformed rivet head/tail. Enough vibration can causes the defromed portion to loosed over the years. This is one of the reasons why they are going back and replacing all the rivets on the Golden Gate bridge with bolts. They can periodically recheck the bolts, and tighten as needed. Also the reason why alot of newern big-iron building I-beams are now bolted together rather then riveted like they used to be. Spot welds are done with an electical current through a clamping style welder. This fuses the two pieces together with both the electical current and the clamping force. The actual spot weld is stronger than the surrounding metal as it's now two (or more) layers fused into one. Hence why they are a pain in the butt to seperate.

But just my opinion, your results may vary.

A minor success today vs yesterday. I installed a NOS distributor yesterday with points, rotor,cap and condenser already mounted. I've had this for some years just sitting on the shelf. The engine had a minor cough just once and we determined it had no spark. I pulled the dist and checked the points and regapped them to a snug .016. Using an ohmeter I checked that I was breaking/making continuity. When on the cam lobe it read infinity. When on the flat it read about .114? It should have read .000. I took a point file and gave it about a dozen good swipes. Now it reads .000. The points had oxidized. No shame for fifty plus year old points.
Just to make sure, I pulled the plugs and cranked it over to bring #1 up on compression. The shop manual says to bring pointer to about 6 degrees before TDC and install dist. This is the 55 portion of the shop manual. Should I have pointer on 10 degrees before TDC? Hmm? I dropped the dist in and double checked the one o'clock position. Installed the plugs and wires - made sure the oil pressure wire and temp wire were connected and went home for dinner.
Today with mechanic Barry's help I turned the key and pumped the accelerator. The engine cranked over and "Houston, we have ignition"!! I had the carbs set up as high as the screw would permit and it ran up to 2 grand on the tach. We backed it down to about 1700 and ran it in for a little over 20 minutes. It sounds good. I shut it down and checked the oil. It is right on the full mark. The tranny showed low so I added two quarts to it making a total of 11. The temp gauge never reached the halfway mark with an old rad in place. The four-core rad has a leak and I will take it up to the rad shop tomorrow. I can run through the gears tomorrow and verify the tranny engages. Then I can remove my faux left fender and mount the real one in place. Aah, I love it when a plan comes together.

Randy,

Great to hear fire-up went well.

The vent windows and frame looked pretty shabby compared to the rest of the car so I determined to rectify that.
First step in refurbishing the vent wings is to remove the vent wing assembly or frame:
A Disconnect and remove the side windows from each door and store them safely. I always reinstall the washers and spring clips in their respective locations so I don't lose them.
B. Remove the screws referenced as 30.40754 from the inner
panel and frame. Remove the lower divisor bar screw and
the two screws holding the vent wing frame to the door.
C. Maneuver the assembly up and out of the door.
I had to tilt the frame to bring the divisor bar up and
out first because I had to turn the frame 90 degrees to
get clearance to lift it out of the door. You can see the
extra two pieces that are attached to each frame.

Attach file:

---

  (73.79 KB)