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I'm a little late posting, but I thought I'd share my gas pump experience with my '51 200. As was mentioned in earlier posts, I have to pull the nozzle most of the way out and run the pump the slowest it will go. Even then, the pump will kick off numerous times. It takes about 10 times as long as it should to fillmthe tank, but I can get it filled this way. Also, people tend to watch trying to figure out why the car is whistling. Lol.

Hi gregb. Thanks for sharing that experience. I have exactly the same problem and it's due to the fact that gas pumps deliberately create 'bubbles' in the gas in order to activate the auto shut-off on the bowser. No easy fix for that!

So my personal work-around is that I have several 5 and 10 gallon petrol containers at home, which I fill at the local gas station and then I fill the Packard at home after doing a run. The gas flows in nice and fast without any delay!

It's a bit of fiddling around but to my mind much better than standing at the pump for 10 minutes to get the tank half filled.

Now I have driven my '51 for over 600 miles and wanted to give a brief report on how it is performing.

We have enjoyed driving her very much, and have only had one minor problem with her mechanically, which was a bad spark quench (ignition) condenser that caused the engine to lose power and after-fire when it heated up. Initially I suspected the coil, which was a NOS from Kanter, so I bought a new 6Volt coil locally and fitted it. Same problem persisted. So swapped the condenser which I had not suspected as it was a new one, and the problem went. Wish I had done that first and saved myself 80 bucks!

The issue with the Ultramatic moving out of direct drive into converter mode very late (- at around 5mph) is still present despite me cleaning the governor and trying adjustments of the kick-down (throttle control) lever, which didn't fix the issue. Still, it is not a big problem, and I can live with it.

The car drives very well, and has loads of power and is comfortable. In heavy rain the front quarter windows leak and I feel this is due to the new rubbers used, which leave gaps in a couple of places. I have pressed some dumdum (3M caulking strips) into gaps to see it that will reduce or eliminate the leaks. If not it will need silicone squirted in as well.

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Larry, is that you? These, then, are words of a man who overcame seemingly endless five years of doubts and turned a good doozen nonbelievers into congratulants?

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To have a work-around is good. But I can't escape the feeling that petrol isn't the royal road. When new, the auto shut-off was marketed as advantage and not as fate.

Ah, yes Guscha, it was a long race but worthwhile and I always believed I could finish!

Well, the topic of refilling a gas tank has been discussed often, but I have not seen any reference to 'bubbles of gas switching off the pump', so maybe the cut-off is activated differently on American pumps -?? Perhaps fumes switch it off? Here I would stand for 10 or 15 minutes trying to fill my tank, with the pump switching off maybe 50 times as the bubbles climbed the filler tube. The gas would not flow in fast enough for the whistle to even work. So my 'fill at home' method is a wonderful one for me!

Are you sure the whistle (or tank vent line) isn't plugged?

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If yours is an early 51 tank made before they removed the whistle and you used one of the sloshing concoctions that is a good possibility. There have been a few reports of that stuff getting up into the whistle and hardening.

Thanks for your suggestions gents . . . and apologies for my delay in responding.

I blew air (and also sucked air) by mouth through the breather tube and there was just a little bit of resistance so there is no major blockage. But there was no whistle either, so something is amiss with the system. I would expect a whistle to happen even when using my lungs to suck air through. Likewise, no whistle happens when I rapidly pour the gas in from a can. Gas goes in quickly without backing up in the neck, probably as quickly as if it was being pumped from a bowser, yet no whistle is heard. Yet there is a whistle fitted to the tank (- judging from photos I've seen).

So - why doesn't the gas back up in the filler neck when I pour it rapidly from a gas can? It flows in quite OK, so it would seem the breather tube is OK(?)

Or maybe the very small amount of resistance to air flow is causing the problem.

My tank was (thankfully) un-rusted, and looked metal-shiny after a clean, so no 'gunk' was needed. So the whistle must be a dud it seems.

I can only surmise that the problem is not a vent tube blockage, but due only to the gas station pump 'switch-off' mechanism constantly switching off as bubbles back up the filler neck.

My question is: do US petrol pumps use the same switch off mechanism of bubbling gas coming up the filler neck?

You may not have the whistle. I believe the attachment and whistle housing was visually the same but they eliminated the inner whistle part sometime in Dec 1950 so was only on the early run of 1951 cars. They issued another bulletin later on advising how to eliminate the whistle in the field if there were complaints of slow filling at the gas pump so it could also have been removed by the dealer.

Thanks Howard. I reckon you are right about the whistle being 'not present'.