Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Brian. I am slow. Never could beat the flat rate manual. My hat is off and i bow to sny man that could actually make a career living working at a dealership.

No flat rate involved, and not just in my garage at home, where I am only a mechanic as a hobby. The shops that my dad ran worked on clock time.

I refer to flat rate manuals primarily as a comparative reference to budget my personal time.

Well it is now 11 months and around 6000 miles later. The noise has grown loud enough that I believe the root cause will be discernible upon tear down. The last few early morning starts, with temps in the 30s, it has developed a more distinct knock. It is present during the first 5 minutes, under light load, coming off idle, in low gear. I am thinking its gonna be a wrist pin.

I was hoping it would last till spring, but I am now leery of driving the car any further. So it looks like its gonna be a winter project.

I have a couple of other 352s, back from the machine shop several years ago and carefully packed away. They just need re-assembly, but I hope to keep the original motor in the car. So I will disassemble it and see what I am dealing with first.

Will see how it goes, and post results & pix here when the time comes.

Wrist pins when loose have a very characteristic sound, not a "knock" but more of a click, and a double-click at that. From your description it doesn't sound typical of wrist pin noise.

Remove one spark plug wire at a time and DRIVE it to see if the tick goes away. Maybe remove a spark plug and drive it too. Try to determine WHICH cylinder is causing the tick. Mite save alot of disassembly.

Usualy a wrist pin will knock only at at idle or just off idle and knock will go away at any speeds or load higher than idle or high idle.

If above procedure does not cause any change in symptoms then be very suspicous of timing chain. How many miles on chain and what brand is it ????

Check timing chain:
Remove fuel pump. Use a long stiff wire or rod to feel for slack in chain. IIRC a good long finger will woork too. Note that any slack felt will be rather high on the chain so actual slack will be greater than what can be felt thru the fuel pump hole.