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Josh,
Wow, I was going to ask you about the shipper you used, especially for a dead car, but I'm not sure now! Did the car sustain any damage?

The 55-56 parts book gives the body mount/shim and bolt information for the Caribbean. I don't know what's in the straight eight parts book, but I'm guessing they would be the same.

How are the inner rockers on the new car? The pictures show rot on the outer rockers. I will let others who are more knowledgable about body work give the best advice. My opinion, but if the inner rockers are not structurally strong you will have body sag. Are your floors bad as well, I would bet that may also contribute to the body sag too.

Old cars are fun!

If you have large door gaps and a lot of rust in the vehicle, I would check out the rearmost body mounts, on the trunk floor either side of the trunk lid latch plate, They are most likely rusted out and the entire rear of the car is sagging. Definitely repairable, but of course it'd be better if you didn't need to fix it.

Some time back there was a poster who asked about an ebay offering and whether it would be worth purchasing. It was a generic book or pamphlet detailing where or how body mount locations and spacer thickness at those different points affected certain fits in doors or panels thruout the car. Did anyone buy the item or does anyone remember the name of the book.

Thanks for the tips, I'll have to check those areas out for sure. Surprisingly though, while there's some significant floor pan rust on the driver's side, the car itself is a lot more solid than it looks - the areas where the body attaches to the floor seem very solid, compared to almost completely missing on the other car (which has almost perfect door shuts, oddly enough.)

My suspicion is that the previous owner had the body off at some point maybe, and didn't get the shims in the right place going back on the car. I'll check the service manual to see if it has any info that can guide me, but I managed to find a 55-57 Chevy guide that explained where to take away and add shims to fix various door gap issues for the convertibles, that will definitely help if I can't find something more Packard specific.

It's here:

Danchuk Volume Eleven, Issue 2 Body Mount Adjustments

Perhaps this is of some help.

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Yes! This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank ya sir!

That is a nice diagram to have. Is there a manual that illustration appears in or a larger more readable copy somewhere?

I was going to ask the same thing - it doesn't seem to be from the 1953 Service Manual, and blowing the picture up doesn't seem to make the text readable. I can figure out the gist based on the Service Manual and the info from the Chevy site though.

Sorry, I don't have a better copy. As you can see from the logo in the lower right I "snitched" that image from somewhere. i'll try to sharpen it up in Photoshop and see if it improves it.

Have been trying to sell our house, so not a lot of time to play with the car, but I finally got sick of waiting for showings, doing nothing, so I went out and put the car in the air.

A few weeks ago I took the time, blew out the fuel line and replumbed it through the fuel pump, and now I'm able to start the car and keep it running on fuel from the fuel tank, which is a plus over my mocked up 1 gallon gas can.

With that sorted, I remembered I had a full set of brake lines, so I went to go check out how they ran under the car - and the factory brake lines actually don't look too bad

So I had to come inside and figure out how to add brake fluid for the treadlevac - turns out it was bone dry and crystallized. So that's the mystery of the brakes solved.

I did a minor adjustment and all 4 wheels seem pretty good. One of the rear corners could probably stand to have the drum turned, but it's not too bad. You can just feel it grabbing a bit more in one spot when fiddling with the adjuster.

Adjusted the parking brake as well, to tighten that up, so hopefully when we get ready to move it we don't end up in the flower bed again. :D

I added some fluid to the treadlevac and wasn't able to get the brakes to apply, so probably at the very least need to blow out those lines as well. At some point they'll get replaced, but hopefully that can wait until we get the lift to the new house, so I can get underneath it easier. Right now there's a car on it and half a house worth of boxes under it.

While I had it in the air though, I thought I'd give it a shot and put it in gear, and sure enough, the rear wheels turn - so as soon as I get the brakes working, I could potentially take it for a drive.

Maybe this weekend I'll take the time and disconnect the treadlevac and check it out - I know I have a spare of that somewhere as well.