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G'day fredkanter,
back to PackardInfo! Great to see the limo being resurrected, will be eagerly following along as it progresses.

Behoving my being the Forum Ambassador with a particular focus on the Packard Owner's Registry, could you please include the Limo in the Registry? And, as long as I'm on this tack, any other Packards you have? In fact, the more the merrier!

Do- over, block cracked in the usual place from top of bore to exh valve seat. Will be diassembling another 327 9 main with crossed fingers

Great fun getting black up to my elbows again.

Progress has slowed a bit due to the need to run a business and other distractions. Motor #2 has been disassembled and magnafluxed, to my dismay it too has a crack from an exh valve seat over to a cylinder wall. One repair shop said they can't get to it until after Pebble Beach, will try another.

While waiting, the chassis is being sandblasted then it will be painted an appropriate semi-gloss black. Next will be the clear coating of the front suspension, rebuilding of the brakes, new shocks and installation of new custom made front and rear springs which have already arrived. Soon we'll have a pretty, 99+% accurately restored chassis.

Robert Neal's magnificent book notes that there were 4 of these beauties, one completed by Dietrich Inc with a fancy interior and 3 others started by them and completed by Henney with plainer interiors. Ours appears to be the #1 car with the fancy interior as the car in Neal's book has a more utilitarian look in the front compartment

At this point I no longer believe our car is the last coachbuilt Packard. Live and learn.

With having the fancy interior and being the car that had AC installed, was there enough left to see what they provided for air outlets? Was curious how or where they brought out the ducting to the passenger compt. Nothing was obvious on the interior photos posted earlier and all you could see in the trunk was they apparently ran the AC output under the car to somewhere instead of doing the usual ducts on the package shelf.

The rear interior looked like a bomb went off in it, roof rusted through in places so water poured in. Rear oval window was lying on package shelf, headliner was draped over rear seat/floor. We saved everything, will look at and post photos soon.

Hi Fred

"At this point I no longer believe our car is the last coachbuilt Packard. Live and learn."

Why do you believe this is so? It might not be the very last, but it might well be the last still extant enough to restore......

Steve

Technically that distinction would belong to the 1954 Henney-Packards but yours is certainly one of the last by Dietrich!

I'm a bit fuzzy on what to define as a coachbuilt vehicle.
For sure our car built by Dietrich Inc. is but i'm not so sure about the Henney 8 passengers in 53-54. If they are, then perhaps all the 70's specialty cars such as the Buick GNX and the Olds W-30's etc are and the Cavalier convertibles??

I consider the Henneys and other cars listed as limited production vehicles.

Thoughts??

Does this crack problem happen at a certain cylinder or can it be any cylinder?
John

Most often but not always from valve seat to cyl 4 or 5. One block has one crack from #5 , the other block which had an enormous amount of rust sediment over 2" deep on the freeze plug side had 3 cyls cracked including #7. I'm guessing it had to do with in sufficient cooling at the valve seat areas??