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BEAUTIFUL!!! After seeing your pictures I know I will return my '51 to Matador Maroon - thanks to the formula you sent me. Excellent work.

Lee,

Congratulations!

You've come some way since we, fellow members of the Packard Automobile Club of Australia, visited 3 months back.

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Thanks fellas, glad you like the colour and result, can't tell you how many times 'what colour will it be??' was discussed over and over with my wife. It was originally Turquoise Light which is also very nice. Matador Maroon eventually won.

Mal has shown my garage when it was tidy(!). Should see it in its 'normal' state. The dog won't go in there . . .

It's been a couple of months since I did any work of consequence on the car. Plenty of small but necessary stuff has been done in recent weeks (see pics of some tasks done) like arranging chroming and finding or ordering parts etc. I attended the PACA (Packards Australia) National Rally then took a few extra weeks to travel back home doing some camping on the way. Now it's back to work again.

The chroming of bumpers, overriders , door handles, quarter window frames and a few other parts was done really well, so very pleased with that. I fitted two new quarter window glasses in their newly chromed frames (- the old glasses were hopelessly de-laminated and cracked).

I've got the engine (which was fully disassembled and has been for 40+years!) on a stand and have found most of the necessary bits and pieces for it amongst many boxes of parts. (No shortage of parts because I have a number of complete 288 engines. Pity I have only the one car!).

After measuring tolerances on the engine it's pleasing to find that all tolerances are better than expected. Bores, mains and big end wear are all well within limits. The engine appears to have had an easy life because the measurements all show only moderate wear. (My car was off the road well before 1975 so has not been driven for almost forty years. It may have been in storage since the mid-1960's).

I am using new cam bearings and new pistons/ rings. Oil pump checks out fine and fuel pump has been renovated. Have a kit for the carburetor and new freeze plugs plus all gaskets and seals, ready to go in.

Of several cylinder heads I have (- according to date stamps there's a '53, a '50 and two '51's) I'm using the correct '51 head. It had both water outlet screws sheared off flush with the head surface and it was an hour's work to extract those. 'Easy-outs' were no use (- studs extremely tight due to rusted in) so I drilled exact center and eventually was able to remove all remains without any damage to the original threads. My method to get them out cleanly has worked aok for every seized screw so far (and there have been quite a few).

Next step will be restoration of the generator, starter, and various other bits. A lot of other mechanical parts have already been restored / painted / checked and are ready to use when the time comes to trot them out of storage.

My Ultramatic was restored way back in 1975. That will just go straight into the car and get 'tested' in the car. Who knows whether it will be ok or not. When that time arrives I'll ask the experts what I could or should do before it goes in. Maybe a flush-out or valve case off for a quick check etc but I'm not planning to disassemble it just on the basis of checking it. If it doesn't work then it'll come back out of the car and onto the bench. Still, that is months away yet.

Also am expecting a shipment of glass channel and division posts etc soon so it's likely I'll get diverted back to doing stuff on the body again. But engine back into the car is my main priority now.

The rear main seal is finally fitted.(- see my posts where I asked for advice because it seemed a very tight fit). Help was forthcoming and the seal is now bedded in ok. Today I've been lapping the valves in. Tomorrow I hope to place the rods with new pistons back into the block. Block is incorrect gray so it will be re-painted in the correct '51 engine colour.

Edit: Having trouble posting the photos - some won't stick and computer says 'No'!! I'll try again later . . . . .

Edit #2: Still can't attach pics so I'll try adding them in a new post

Headlight buckets restored. I've got the new cloth-covered wiring to go into them as well









Chroming turned out to be top quality. Should look good with new bumper bolts I was lucky enough to find on eBay









Quarter window frames re-chromed and new glass fitted




New camshaft bearings and the can is in excellent condition which was pleasing




Painting timing and side covers






Broken stud removal in the head I will use

New pistons & rings. They are the good 'original Packard' style 'Thermostrut' (steel inserts)

Block and crank cleaned & checked

The journals are virtually unmarked

Ok . . . this is a test post . . . . c'mon . . . . work for me . . . .

Right . . . . . let me post just ONE photo . . .




Son-of-a-gun!!! It worked!!!

OK, on with the show.

Broken head studs removed, I'm getting good at this now, hardly have a problem getting them out






Was having problems posting for some reason but seems to be ok now. Lost my typing, couldn't get a photo to upload. There's a couple of months of work to cover so here goes.

Cleaning 40 years of gunk out of the crankcase



New pistons fitted



Loctiting the bigend nuts, just to be sure . . .



Night Shift starts . . . Engine suspended at each end. I wouldn't trust an engine stand to hold the 288 properly!



Lovely camshaft, not a mark on it. Has been wrapped up in oily cloth for 40+years




Cam in and spins nicely in it's new #2 bearing



New timing chain, extremely tight and took an hour or two to fit. If it had been a millimetre shorter I wouldn't have gotten it onto the cogs

CAN'T POST PHOTOS (AGAIN), FRUSTRATING. BYE FOR NOW.

Larry,

THere is a limit to how many links (which you are using to post the pics) can be in one post. This was done to help prevent spammers from loading up the posts with items that could be malicious.

You may need to spread the links across a couple of posts, instead of trying to do them all in one post.

Thanks BigKev, I'll try that method. Damn the hackers I say!

OK, using BigKev's suggestion, looks like I'll have to limit my photos in each post. I was wondering why I couldn't post pics.

Carrying on from yesterday's blog . . . .Here is the new timing chain fitted. It was VERY tight and I spent an hour or two coaxing it onto the gears. If it was even 1mm shorter I doubt it would have fitted!




Couldn't buy a key that fitted the crank keyway properly in terms of shape, so a similar shaped key was filed down until it fitted. That took quite a while because it was a much thicker key.

Fortunately I have a few cylinder heads including two dated
"1951". The best in terms of straight/ no warping or marking was one of these '51 heads and it cleaned up to look like new.



Photos are a bit out of order now due to posting problems, but what the heck!

One of the rebuild tasks that had me scratching my head a lot was fitting the new rear main oil seal. It was in the gasket set from Kanter, and it just looked too darn big to fit properly. In the first pic you can see how much of the rope seal protrudes above the seating slot, despite a lot of pressing in as per the Manual. For a while I thought it was the wrong sized seal, but after a lot of pressure it finally seated relatively flat into the slot. I tightened / released the rear main cap about a dozen times to get it in, turning the crank slowly each time and lubricating the seal with pre-fit Moly Disulphide spray. More pressing with a round of wood and eventually it was in, but very tight. Had to really lean on an extension bar to turn the crank. Now I am pleased to say that it is just right for tightness and the crank turns more easily.

Seal protruding a lot despite much pressing to get it in



Another view of the troublesome seal



Once again, photo out of sequence. The crank has virtually no wear, is original diameter and unmarked so in it went. Checking the mains and big end bearings was done with Plastigages and finding that the engine was hardly worn was quite a relief.



Here's a shot of all valves held aloft with wood blocks, to allow the cam to be introduced to the engine. This was after the valves had been lapped in, and valve springs and lifters fitted.



My exhaust guides are just within wear limits and inlet guides well within wear limits. Even though I had bought a new set of guides (both) I made a conscious decision to not replace the exhaust guides yet, having read a few posts about jammed valves. My attitude is that it's better to have a bit of extra play in the guides than take any risk of jamming a valve. Maybe I'll use a bit extra oil but will have some extra peace of mind.

Progress with the engine rebuild is going well. Feeling like I'm getting ahead with this project now.

Here's the engine painted, head studs in, and I'm ready to install the manifolds. Tappets adjusted to a reasonable gap also, and timing has been done.

Man, those head studs take some effort to wind in, even when lubricated with stud sealant!



Painted the manifolds with the correct heat-proof POR paint. The wife was not too impressed with me baking these on the stove for a few hours! (I had to take her out for dinner as the house smelt very toxic from the paint).



Had to do some checking of photos etc to get the distributor fitted in correct position in relation to #1 cylinder. I wasn't sure it was oriented OK until after contacting someone with a 288 same as mine for a pic of the #1 plug lead.

So here I've marked #1 with a pen cap . . . .



Also, looking into the dizzie mounting hole I could check that the tang on the oil pump shaft was in its correct position to take the distributor. Pic shows tang sitting horizontal, like the manual DOESN'T really tell you . . . .

I found the Manual quite a bit deficient in some areas, like this one



Here are sump (oil pan), oil pump and reconditioned fuel pump all fitted. I had wondered what the plastic bushings on fuel pump were there for, and later realised they act to insulate from heat passing into the pump and causing vaporization problems.




Now I'm almost ready to move the engine from the workshop (- which is under my house) around to where the car is, in the garage. That will prove to be quite tricky as the lawn slopes every which-way, and front drive slopes quite a lot too. Lucky I have hospital insurance, just in case!

Here the engine is on the crane and ready to move out and around to the garage. Head, water pump (previously reconditioned), oil filter and other parts all fitted.

Great looking work there. Mine should look so good -- but doubt it ever will. Did you get your starter figured out? You may have the pin. The anti kickback Bendix was suggested to be retrofit to earlier cars if owners had complained about the issue it corrected.