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One last set, hope these will help,

A very rough 55 Caribbean, before and after:

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Awesome pictures, thanks! A lot of that will help. I ended up having to cut the old ones out in sections, so I have about a 2 foot section of clean metal I can look at which will help too.

Did you fabricate the new ones yourself, or is there a supplier out there somewhere where I can get them? The ones in the '55 look great, and if I could pick up a set rather than having to come up with them on my own, that'd be much preferred!

Just a note, on my '53, it doesn't appear as though the bracing struts were ever welded to the box section. I considered that it seems like it would be much stronger to do it that way. It looks like they're welded in the '55 pictures.

The inner rockers were fabricated many years ago. You made mention of buying a metal break, so I wanted to give you an idea of what you would be fabricating, or having made. What about asking the PNT member that owners the body shop to make them for you. He has a 54 Caribbean to use as a pattern.

That welding you see in the orange tinted pictures is rust!

Oh no, I was talking about the pictures of the new support on the bottom - it looks like all the little ribbing on the bottom of the floor, with the hole in the end is welded to the new inner rocker.

FYI

How are your wheel well molding?

As seen at the PAC meet. They are being reproduced, how many, and for how long??

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Thank you for letting me know! I went ahead and sent him an email, so hopefully I'll hear back soon

Wow, sorry - it's been a long time between updates, but life happens.

I managed to order the front reproduction pieces, and they're beautiful - I haven't test fitted them yet, but now I've got the opportunity.

A month or two ago, I managed to install the sectioned floor under the Caribbean body, and get it tacked back together - very square and fit is good, just need to start filling in between the spot welds, and the floor is already so solid I can stand on it, all the way back through the trunk.

Biggest news, is just yesterday I received another '53 Caribbean that I bought on eBay - and it's in much better shape than the one I had, but definitely needs a floor. Luckily I have one of those.

So now the plan is to use the floor from the Caribbean I have and restore this new one, because it's a lot more complete and in a lot better shape. I feel like the old one could have been restored (eventually, after a ton of work), but this one is probably 3 years closer to being done, and maybe only months away from being a running driving car.

Now I just have to get it out of my flowerbed, where it rests after escaping the not-so-careful attentions of the delivery driver.

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G'day Josh,

Congratulations on your "new" '53 Caribbean, and please don't forget to include it in the Packard Owner's Registry.

Great! Maybe you can get one together fairly quickly and the other in the long term. Be a shame to lose one of them just for parts. Good luck!

Today was a looong day, but a good Packard day. A friend came over to see the new car, and he's worked on muscle cars for a long time, so I begged his assistance in trying to start up the new Caribbean.

Checked the radiator, and it's topped up, green, and clean - and even let out a bit of a hiss when I popped the cap, so it's holding pressure. The oil was just over the 7qt line, and new honey gold. New plug wires, new coil and new battery already on it - I had it on the battery tender for a few days, because it was a bit discharged, but the battery tender showed it ready for action now.

Battery cable was good, so we ran a cable to the top post on the starter solenoid and gave it a bump, and she turned over and puffed pretty strong - so definitely had some compression. Added the coil wire, tweaked and messed around - it wanted to catch on starter fluid, but not for more than a second or so - turns out we weren't able to get any gas from the fuel tank - not clear whether clogged or just totally empty at this point, but the previous owner seemed to know what they were doing so far.

Took a one gallon gas can, tapped it at the bottom and ran the hose directly from the gas can to the carb, and held it up to use gravity to feed the carbs, a little starter fluid, and a couple of attempts and it started right up. We ran it for a minute or 3, and everything sounds pretty good, other than what sounds like a little lifter noise.

But you be the judge:

53 Packard Caribbean Running

We turned it off pretty shortly, because the coil and starter were hot-wired, but right now the instruments are disconnected, so even though it sounded good, we don't know anything about oil pressure or temperature yet.


Also, yesterday I hit some of the bare metal areas with some red oxide rustoleum, just to give it some sort of protection. They had stripped the hood, trunk and driver's door, and there were a few other areas that needed it too. Now it's looking a lot better, too, and my 3 year old daughter keeps asking if we can take the 'brown car' when we have to go somewhere. :D

Also from our fun little drama of the delivery of the thing, today I managed to pull the window sill in my office, replace the drywall and mud it in today, tomorrow will texture and paint. No damage to anything structural, the tires behind the delivery ramps seemed to arrest most of the momentum. I got the brick window ledge pushed back out and the window is square again, just have to find some sorta-matching bricks to redo the sill. All told, a few hours and maybe $80 worth of paint, bricks and mortar, so that's a load off.

I did notice also that there's a substantial door gap on the driver's side top, and too much on the passenger side as well. On the Drivers side, the door had been disassembled for trim, etc, so I assumed they had taken the latch out as well, but it turns out that it's just flexed so far that the latch doesn't connect with the striker. So very, very soon, it looks like I'll be adjusting some body shims, and praying, hopefully can get it to tighten back up. Have to peek through the service manual and see if they have any good tips on which positions to start with - my guess would be to start adding shims toward the rear, and that should close it up, but technically doing it at the front would probably do the same.

Also, started to take apart the front hubs to investigate why the brakes didn't stop the car, but after pulling the wheel and cap, I found wonderfully packed fresh new grease, so I aborted for now. I'll start with the lines and move on to the master cylinder. Have to make it stop before I can make it go, as my window ledge can attest to. :D