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I believe the canister you have is a later one which used a small hole in the center tube as the restriction in place of the small orifice in the bottom fitting. It might even be an aftermarket. Factory filters I remember seeing from earlier cans which had the inlet at the bottom had more than one hole in the center post. Those are the ones that had to have a fitting with a small orifice to limit flow. That canister you have does make it surprising your lifters were happy all these years.

Not sure which return hole you are speaking of when you say halfway up the block. I assume you mean the port above the tees and gauge sender which is the feed directly to the tappet gallery. The added filter only return hole was drilled so oil dropped into the crankcase just below the oil filler tube. That location & instructions for drilling is shown in the service letter 15#12 which is available on site for download. Still later engines like Joe's and mine have it cast in the area where the oil pan bolt holes are located.

Logically, the filter should work either way but IMO, if oil enters the side there would be more filter surface to trap dirt and the filter should last longer than if it has a center inlet & all the dirt is concentrated in the small center section. Not sure when Packard changed from the center inlet to the side inlet. Big Kev has one of the early bottom inlet types and I believe he has reversed his.

So, need to improve oil flow to lifters? Best way? Other than if I can find an early canister? The one I see on ebay is kind of a universal one, and even if flows the other direction may have the same restrictions as the one I have now?
You are right only the hole above the tee's and sender.

Just thinking aloud. Could run a tube from the outlet to the inlet at side of block, with a small valve. Allowing some of the oil to run directly back into the block bypassing the filter. If it is possible to over deliver oil, the valve could take care of.

Anyone happen to have the correct oil canister for sale?
Thanks

I don't have any canisters but without the return hole I can't think of any plumbing method that would reliably do exactly as you need even with a different unit.

One thing worth trying is to pretend the car didn't have the filter and plumb around it for a test. Use a short length of tubing as a pigtail to go directly from port to port as was done in all the cars without filters. See if the noise goes away. If it does then plumb the filter and drill the return hole per the bulletin. You could keep the canister unit you have now in operation. Napa has short lengths of premade 1/4" steel tubing with the proper flares and american thread nuts that you could bend to go from the tee to the straight adapter fitting to use for a test item.

After a few minutes running, if the noise is still present then you have something else going on that needs to be resolved. Maybe a bad lifter or maybe a chunk of something passed thru when you cleaned the filter and is now lodged in a lifter so one or more need cleaning

I have the tubing and benders so will give that a try. What is the advantage of dropping extra oil to the crank case?
Thanks.

The advantage of return oil dropping into the crankcase is there is no pressure in the return line so oil will go thru the filter. In a partial flow setup anything else would have pressure on both lines so oil might not move thru. Plumbing the way they want with the restriction will allow approx 90 percent of the oil to feed the lifters directly while the other 10 percent goes to the filter and clean oil returns to the crankcase to be used again. After the early 40's, that was the way all partial bypass filters Packard used worked.

The original method had all the lifter supply going thru the filter first which was fine if the filter was new or clean. As soon as the filter clogged then flow was reduced and lifters started getting starved for oil and making noise. Even with a clean filter, If a lifter started getting a little tired there could also be not quite enough oil to keep one pumped up if it started leaking a bit more than another.

The first attempt to cure the problem was a special filter with a built in bypass valve that let oil flow directly to the lifters if the filter was dirty. That didn't last very long and they went to the different method of plumbing as described in the bulletin. Too much oil was still going thru the filter and not enough to lifters so 3 or 4 months later they added the restriction to reduce the filter flow. That is pretty much the way all Packard filters worked from then on.

After I posted the message, kind of thought that. What I am going to do to make it easy and fast, with no restrictions. Is I happen to have two threaded adapters to 5/16 hose barbs. This will give me quick and straight through, no restrictions, from oil output to galley input. Hope for the best.

Sounds like a plan as long as the hose and clamps can take the full pump pressure.

Using the full flow oil canister by pass, have run twice, so far maybe the lifers are about 50% quieter, will rum more over the next two days. Just received today a Packard Oil Canister made by Motor Improvements Inc. Has the inlet at the bottom, and outlet at top side of canister. But, still oil comes in from a small hole in the center pipe, flows inside out of the filter, then to the outlet at top side canister. So no matter how a canister is labeled it seems to flow from inside to outside of filter element. Don't see how this will give me any more flow than the one I originally have on the car. I can drill another hole in the center pipe to give more flow that way, good idea? This canister also came with what looks like a ceramic filter,any ideas on that? Even though it states for Packard, still wrong canister?
Thanks so much. Todd