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Guess it's time to commit to a Blog.
After nearly a year of searching & missing a couple of strong cars, I threw a bid at a promising lead. Had I inspected it first, I likely would have passed but for the money, how bad could it be? It turns out the seller is a Studebaker flipper, rather modestly skilled and he certainly "embellished" the truth about it running & driving. I actually had to get it running when I picked it up! My inclination was to pass & likely forfeit my deposit but hey, at least it looked good.
The good points are the paint, trim, chrome & the 3 on-the-tree! 10 year old re-pop tires w/ no miles. The minuses are the body filler, in-op torsion level & he was "misleading" about the exhaust.
She has the original 320, 4bbl, standard brakes, steering, seat & antenna.(Thus a "stripper") Interior has a good deal of merit but the speedo does not work. Glass is nice. Mileage appears to be modest.
Were we stand right now is the brakes & bearings are mostly done & the carb is apart,though very shabby inside:( She will get a tandem master cylinder & PS, P. Antenna & dual exhaust. Maybe a power seat, Overdrive. Oh, tunes too!
With some luck, there will be a posting soon in the "How fast have you been... thread??

TTFN!

This carb is a mess. It will get a Rochester 4 jet for now & we'll tackle this one another day.






This distributor was not meant to come apart as the gear retaining pin was heavily preened over. This is what happens when it slips out of the vice & hits the floor :(
Well, Sat I will pick up a Delco Dizzy.

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So here are the Cliff notes on the last 3 weeks:
I got the intake bolts to fit with the thicker gaskets by drilling out the holes on one side by about .03, freshened up a new (to me) distributor (looked really nice), finished up the carb and started her up with fresh oil. Things sounded great for about the first 90 seconds & then the banging started. It sounded like a couple of ball-peen hammers at valve train speed. I could not believe how loud it was. Something inside must have gotten gummed up?
Fast forward: I had to pull the heater assy to get the right rocker shaft off. NOT fun. Pulled the rockers & lifters and the good news was that the cam lobes & lifters looked super. Disassembled & cleaned all 16 lifters. Put them back together & only lost ONE plunger clip. FYI, a Buick V6/8 lifter clip works :)
She started right up yesterday and is quiet! All that work is almost worth it. So far, special thanks go out to that Polish Packard Professor up in Duluth, der hey.

As of today,She has been around the block a couple times.
The Carb is not quite right with a rather anemic power circuit and I continue to think on that.
The good news is that the brakes & suspension feel very good
and the exhaust is sort of hanging in there, I will tackle that once the carb is good enough to get me to the muffler shop.The trans also feels very good.
We ventured a mile of so to a car get-together at a friend's place and she was a bit of a hit, being to only 50's car there. In a perfect world, we would be ready for the big weekend coming up in Iola, WI.
The rear hubcaps will go on as soon as the axle nuts are torqued. progress!

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Nice looking car.

On the heater removal, be thankful it was the V8 version. That one is a piece of cake to pull compared to the 51-4 where you have nuts on the inside under the plenum which has to remove first to access the nuts. IIRC one nut is a pain to get to even with stuff removed.

Am glad the cleaning took care of the problem but is interesting it worked for 90 seconds before going to crap. I take it the pump is the original Packard?? No telling if it broke suction or there was a piece of crud that blocked something. Maybe the relief valve stuck. Anyway, worth keeping an eye on and hopefully there won't be a repeat.

Took the words out of my mouth - that IS a nice looking car!

That is one fine lookin' automobile!

Ah, validation. Thank you guys.
The dwell & timing have been tweaked and she runs pretty swell. It is even starting to grow on me. Seat belts are ordered up and then it's on to exhaust. A "build sheet" of sorts appeared while the glove box was out and the style # & Vehicle ID #'s match the car. The codes did not picture well but are as follows: 33 HE RPM WB FS AG OB OF TLS. Do you suppose the TLS is the torsion level?

There were a number of nice Packards @ the big Iola show this weekend from the Wisconsin chapter.What cars!

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Congratulations on finding the build slip. If you want to decipher what everything stands for the info is herepackardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/55th_Series_RPO_Codes.pdf

The exhaust is in and it really sounds great, I went with Super Turbos from Dynomax/Walker. The lead pipes came from the large Packard exhaust supplier, my plan was to order these up as they would be difficult for a local shop to do, but have the local guy hang the mufflers & bend the tail pipes to avoid any fitment problems that I have heard so much about. Well the right pipes from the manifold back to the X frame came up 5" short and the shop had to insert a piece. If this was a big buck senior car...well, envision a Yosemite Sam moment :)
This weekend, she will get a good shake down and perhaps we will have a "bonding" moment together.
Next step is to chase the dash lights & see if the speedo is any good. Just hope to avoid the rain!
Oh, the lifter tick comes & goes but let's see what a hundred mile or so does

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