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Results were pretty telling. The car for now will be an in-town cruiser. The freeway speeds on the car have shown that my GearStart with the faulty lockup has begun it's death spiral. Overheating with the bushings and clutches being very worn.

The engine ran well with no visible smoke and good power, but it did consume oil at freeway speeds. I drove about 300 miles yesterday, 90% at freeway speeds.

Time to start rebuilding that 56 Twin Ultra for near-future transplant.

Just a note on gas mileage. I filled up in the morning and drove 86 miles to work and back, then topped off the gas (4.51gals) before I left for Palm Springs. So if my math is correct, that yields a 19.06mpg. Not to bad for a Packard with a bum transmission.

That's pretty impressive fuel mileage. It would even be a few MPGs better if you could buy real fuel instead of the corn swill that they sell these days.

Considering how bad your trans looked inside, it's truly amazing that it works at all.


Jeff

Just a minor update:

Packard went to the local upholstery shop to have the pre-sewn headliner I purchased online installed. I purchased the napped cotton headliner from www.newstalgiaparts.com for $209. I was able to just order it using the drop-down selectors on their website. Easy peasy.

The upholstery shop is going to use the extra material that came with the headliner to recover the sun visors and b-pillar panels as well.

Price out the door is $320 for their labor.

Dropped off this morning, will be ready this evening.

On a side note, the transmission is still running good around down, even felt the converter lock-up a few times around 25mph.

I guess once she gets hot (freeway runs) is when things start to feel funky. Perhaps an aux tranny cooler will help to keep the transmission grim reaper away for a bit longer.

BigKev Quote:

Great idea in any case! If the I8 cooler is anything like the V8 cooler, then it's more of a heater than a cooler. That's one of first things I changed on my 55 Pat 14 years ago and I think it accounts for the fact that my T-U has never given me any problems all these years.

Craig

Car back from the upholstery shop and it looks great. The guys at the upholstery shop asked me where I got the presewn headliner from as it was "finely made".

Also I painted the hard rubber lock knobs I got from RockAuto. If you drill out the a little bigger, it will push down over the barbed shaft used on the '54 models.

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Lookin' good Kev!!

What he said!

Headliner looks fantastic, Kev!!! Looks like the lock knobs will work out fine too. Seems like you're about all set on the interior.

Can't wait to see the final touches in March.

Jim, you'll see it in Feb! :)

Thanks guys, I am really happy with how it turned out. The color is perfect, and originally the door panels were that same color before age and sun bleached them out. So at some point I may have them redone, but have other items on the list before then.

Headliner looks good, now looking at that I think getting the job done professionally is the way to go. Looks like early spring and some saving up to get the job done. Your Clipper and description of your work and posts from other members have save me many dollars and many hours of work. I hope I can help others on the site in the future.