Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

Quote:

JD, I see that you have three Packards. What do you usually see on your dash oil pressure gauges at speed and at idle on a hot day with the Rotella?

Thanks, Jeff

hi jeff; at one point u said u were worried about tight bearing. do u know what the rods and mains are at and did u put in new cam bearings? the oil is going some place. if u have an extra .0005 on the mains u will loose a lot of pressure. the weight of the oil will effect the pressure to a point- the relief valve acts on pressure and if all the clearances are in the ball park i would shim the spring to get 40 lb's when driving

[quote]
bigmoparjeff wrote:
...What do you usually see on your dash oil pressure gauges at speed and at idle on a hot day with the Rotella?...
/quote]

Of my three Packards only the '50 currently runs. The oil pressure at speed is just under 40. I don't remember what the idle pressure is but there is enough pressure to keep the lifters quiet. Outside temperature doesn't seem to have any effect on the oil pressure as the engine stays in the mid-range of the temperature gauge even on the hottest Summer days.

Quote:


Dell, I don't recall the exact measurements off the top of my head, but I remember that 8 of the 9 mains were on the tight side of the spec, and one was towards the loose end of the spec. All the rod bearings were dead center of spec. The cam bearings are new, and were installed by the machine shop, but felt good when I installed the cam. I do remember that the Packard service manual states that the hydraulic lifter mechanisms are carefully matched to the lifter bodies at the factory and should not be mixed up. It's possible that the reproduction lifter mechanisms are a bit of a loose fit in the bodies, and I'm loosing some pressure there. They did seem a little loose to me when I put them in. There's so many places on this motor to loose a bit of pressure: nine mains, nine cam bearings, eight lifter bodies, plus I think the mains are fully grooved, which tends to drop your pressure a bit too. The oil pump really needs to move some oil to keep the pressure up.

As with everything else, the brake work is taking longer than expected, so I haven't had the chance to run the car again. I should be able to do that this afternoon.

Jeff

Quote:

That's about where I am now. The spec on the 356 is 50 psi at speed, but Packard makes it very clear in the service manual that they expect the pressure to drop as the engine gets some miles on it. Since my bearings are all new and the pump appears to be in very good shape, I was hoping to be up at 50. As Dell mentioned, it may be as simple as shimming the pressure spring in the pump to get there. I think the other engines call for 40 psi at speed.

Jeff

jeff; one other thing u might look at is the fitting that the oil pressure gauge, filter and line to lifters, it has a restriction to cut down on the volume to the lifters. if some one drilled that out u will get a lot more oil to the lifters and cam side of block. dell

Hi Dell, I'm happy to report that shimming the relief valve did the trick. I added five thin little washers behind the spring, and it brought the pressure up to 47 psi at speed and it will drop down to about 30 after it idles for a while. The bad news is that the oil leak isn't getting any better with time, so it looks like I'm still going to have to pull the timing cover off.

The big news of the day is that the Packard made it's first trip under it's own power in about 25 years. I decided to make a video of the momentous event. I was a bit disappointed at how bad the video mode on my camera works in low light. It almost looks like it was totally dark out, when it was actually the latter part of dusk. I decided to post it anyway, since you can only make a maiden voyage once. If you have an adjustable monitor, tuning the brightness way up helps, otherwise it's best to fast forward to near the end. Some notes on the video: Yes, it's a pain in the butt to get out of my shop with a big car with manual steering. There's presently no latch on the driver's door, and that's why it tries to open every time I turn to the right. The floor section over the transmission is still off the car, and that's why the trans seems so loud, especially when I grind reverse a few times. When I turned around in the street, I realized that I had forgotten to release the parking brake.

The car runs great, but still needs some fine tuning of the carburetor, as it's got a flat spot right off idle. The shifter linkage could use some minor adjusting too.

Jeff

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/k0TCI08Wcdw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Congratulations Jeff, always a momentous occasion when, after all the work, time and effort, the car undertakes it's "maiden voyage".

Thanks for the video. I enjoyed the ride.

Well, the front of the engine is back apart, and the cause of the trouble remains a mystery. Everything appears to be A-OK. All I can do is install a new seal and hope for the best. I did put a light coat of grease on the face of the previous seal, and I'm wondering if that caused the leak. The service manual implies that the seal is installed dry, though it doesn't specifically say not to put anything on the seal face.

There was a tiny leak in the radiator near the overflow tube, so I brought it back to the radiator shop. Turned out to be a major project to seal the tiny hole.

My new seal and gaskets arrived from Max Merritt, so I'll try to get everything back together by Saturday. The final, written in stone deadline to have it completely finished will probably be next Monday. At this point, it looks like Tuesday will be the day that it goes to the shipping terminal in North Jersey.

Attach file:

---

  (89.16 KB)


  (134.31 KB)


  (153.20 KB)


  (51.71 KB)


  (75.32 KB)