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Nothing to exciting. Last weekend I took the 400 out for its maiden for voyager since its dry dock 10+ years ago. It was a great feeling and nerve racking at the same time. Fortunately it end up well with not having to push the car back home. But other issues were made apparent that will need to attention. So this weekend will be pulling the drive shaft and checking the u joint and a trans service with some adjustments.

Thanks
James

Way exciting! Very cool ..........I like that Scottish heather color too.

It has been quite a while since my last update on the 400. Life has been pretty busy, I have my first child due in June. So it has been a mad rush to get the house ready and any other house projects done. But in the down time I have been working on the Packard but unfortunately not taking as many pictures as I would like.

Since my last post I went through the front end on the Packard and the only real issue was the upper and lower control arm bushings. They since have been all replaced and the front end greased. The only thing that will need to be done is I will need to go up in size on the torsion bar pins to most like the 4 ring as the car has the 2 ring and is very close to the bump stop.

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Next was on to the passenger side window that was inoperable. Started with checking all my power and grounds, wiring wise the car checked out good. I then pulled the regulator and motor to see what was going on. I direct powered the motor and nothing I ended up pulling to the motor apart but over the years of use a burr had formed on the worm gear shaft portion of the armature which made disassembling somewhat difficult. What I found to be the issue was a stuck brush. So I freed the brushes up, polished the shaft part of the armature and lubed up the assembly and now it works good as new.


From there I was able to get some more miles on the car(50 or so). The car had a pinging issue and a shutter so I rear timed the car and fine tuned the dwell. The pinging is gone but the shutter is still slightly there.


As it stands my new list for now is:
1)Fixing / diagnosing the shutter
2)Pulling and checking the wiring for the head lights as the dashboard lights do not work.
3)Torsion level system it works when it feels like, but Dan Kanter has been a big help working on this part.

On a side note I made it to my first car show this past weekend. I will tell you the car got a lot of looks and attention plus the fact that it was the only Packard there. I enjoyed all the people that stopped to talk and reminisce especially one guy that told me how in 1955-56 during his senior year of H.S. He remembers how he and his buddy's would stand on the back of any Packard they saw on the street just to test the torsion level system.


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Also I was amazed how many people loved the patina and the fact that it was original paint in the car.

Thanks
James

I had the same problem with my 56 Patrician.I did a tune up and timing.The pinging is gone but I still have the shudder on take off under load.If you find out what is causing it, please let me know.I had all my tires re-balanced but it is still there.

On the dash light problem you might pay particular attention to the switch. The wipers & contact plates that comprise the rheostat circuit seem to have a problem with corrosion after a long sit.

The rivets that pass thru the ceramic support piece which connects the wire terminal sockets to the contact plates also seem to be easily loosened. If you can move the terminal it is almost a given that corrosion will have started in that tiny surface contact area between the rivet end and terminal. A poor connection there could be another source of the no dash lights problem

GTO, I know I've suggested this to you before, but the shop manual identifies band adjustment as a primary cause of "chatter" when applying power. It's so quick and easy to do, and since your trans was recently worked on, I'd do it if for no other reason that to eliminate it from consideration.

Many of these cars have that shudder on takeoff. The balls in the ball and trunnion front u-joint have worn a little hollow spot in the housing and set up a vibration when forced to rock out of their little ruts.

You can look for another housing, convert the shaft to a normal cross yoke and slip joint, or you can loosen up all your motor mount bolts and slide the engine and tranny to a slightly different position. You probably have 1/8" to play with to get the balls in a different resting spot.

Glad to see that 400 back on the road. I have pics of it from Warren, Ohio.

Ross mentioned the wear in the housing. Wasn't someone talking about resleeving those housings??

Well I have made some head way on the 400. The torsion leveling has been acting up. The car would compensate and raise when weight is applied to the rear but when the weight is unloaded the rear would not come back down. I checked all the wiring and everything checked out so far. So at this point I pulled the control box and cleaned the 58 years of inch thick road grease and dirt from the box. I then brought the control box into work and got a crash course from Dan Kanter on how it operates and freshened up all the points in the box. The box is now back in and on to the limit switches.

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