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To Allenpintenn:

We have purchased cars with cracked blocks, bad valves, cracked pistons and all other maladies. The subject of this forum was about dropping the pan upon purchase as a matter of course. If you read the entire forum you will see that I differ with that and use common sense to determine if there might be dangerous sludge. Open a side valve cover or overhead valve cover and see the sludge situation.

We have never incurred any engine damage because we did not 100% drop the pan

To accuse me of BS, you are irresponsible and I expect a public apology

I accept your clarification and do apologize.

REGARDING "dropping" & cleaning oil pans :

Let me preface my remarks to note that I have done business with the Kanters for many years. Without fail I have found them to be ethical, informed about their business subject-matter - a pleasure to do business with.

I am thus frankly surprised that in this one area, they've come up with seriously wrong advice. Don't listen to them on this particular issue. AT LEAST every two years, "drop" that oil pan and clean it out with some kind of solvent.

Let me explain why. Virtually all Senior Packard products prior to the war years had VERY long oil pans, with multiple baffles.

Unlike many more modern motors with "floating" oil pump pick-ups, these Packards have their oil pump intake at the very lowest part of those long pans.

Given how much "dirtier" old design low compression motors burn, all manner of abrasive gunk winds up in those oil pans; impossible to get it out with each oil change.

Yes, you can get SOME of it out by taking off that little "mini-pan" right at the oil intake of both the Standard, Super Eight, and Twelve oil pans.

But lurking behind those baffles, is going to be all manner of end-products of combustion that you most certainly do not want sucked up and pumped to the bearings.

In the earlier years of the "let's preserve old Packards" movement, so many were ruined by rod bearing failure that need not have happened, had more people "dropped" their oil pans at regular intervals for cleaning.

It is so laughably easy to "drop" those oil pans there is no excuse for not doing that at least every couple of years. Let me qualify that - on the '38 - '39 Twelves, there is an extra three minutes work to un-bolt the steering center-crank mechanism, shove it forward, so you can get the pan off without fussing with the steering "tie-rods".

I am not clear what Kanter THINKS we can learn by opening up a valve compartment "door". That's not where the oil pump sucks up oil! And, of course, inspecting the valve compartment on the 12's isn't quite practical for obvious reasons.

Yes, from 1934 production on the 8 cyl. cars, and from 1935 on, on the V-12's they had full-flow oil filters. What some people forget, when the motor is first started up with cold oil, the "by-pass" is open - the oil that is pumped to those connected rod, main bearings, and valve compartment is unfiltered.

So - bottom line - three cheers for the Kanters for their outstanding service to us - but a bucket of "boo's" for this particular very bad advice of theirs!

Please - if you love to drive your old Packard...drop those oil pans and clean them at regular intervals. It is the easiest, cheapest way to get the outstanding service a properly maintained Packard can provide !

I respect your opinion but I ask that you consider these points.

Senior cars with aluminum oil pans are not driven much these days, in the last 5 years I've never seen one in regular traffic except on tours or at events. Most or nearly all are covered by collectors insurance which limits the number of miles driven and/or the type of driving i.e. collector driving only.

As such the potential for damaging buildup of sludge is just about zero. Such car owners are most likely to change their oil often which flushes out some of the gunk. The "hard" gunk is hard and just stays there not causing any harm unless the owner chooses to use detergent oil without cleaning the pan. Once the pan etc are cleaned, regular use of detergent oil will keep the engine clean.

As I stated, looking in the valve chamber will give you an excellent idea of the condition of the gunk in the pan. I've seen engines with hands full of gunk in the valve chamber and the pan follows.

You are correct about the Twelve valve chamber being difficult to access, so opening the pump access cover will indicate the condition of the sludge problem on all the aluminum pan cars by virtue of removing the oil pump screen.

As to the damage to engines in the early days of collecting, I theorize that many had worn engines that were run at speed and the bearings self destructed, especially the pre-35 babbited rods.

There is room for many opinions. I take offense at your "bucket of boos" awarded to us, people can disagree with grace.

Excellent case in point in the "Project Blogs" section, John's 1201 35 Eight. There is an excellent photo of a just removed oil pan. You will see in the front portion of the pan it is
ABSOLUTELY CLEAN. So much for sludge in far reaching places.

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=17729&start=110

The two deeper parts of the pan seem to have minimal sludge, certainly not enough to cause damage.

I does not seem that removal of the pan was necessary and might have been avoided if the owner had removed the access over and removed the oil screen to clean and inspect.

We have many used aluminum pan engines from 1924-1939, and steel pan engines 1935-1956 in our warehouse, if the mood strikes me I might remove some pans and report. I can say with 100% surety that we have disassembled perhaps 50 Packard engines and never found one that had sludge that would damage it.

Other opinions or actual experiences welcome

Fred, some years back I decided to remove and clean the oil pan on my '56 Caribbean which as best as I could judge had not been previously removed. There wasn't a tremendous amount of sludge in the pan itself but sludge was partially clogging the oil pump intake screen. The car had about 85,000 miles on it at the time, had been owned by a Packard enthusiast since new which means its probably had better than average care. And no doubt it was on a lifetime diet of detergent oil.

Wrong, Fred - look at those fantastic and revealing photos you referred us to again!

That freshly "dropped" oil pan did have sludge - as you point out - was clean only up in the front portion. Typical.. for the simple reason that is where the timing chain slings off oil fast enough so that sludge cant settle.

As you correctly point out in your comment in that thread 'INSPECT THE SLUDGE CAREFULLY' (and, as you say, clean it out. Couldn't agree more ! )

And of course I agree with you that we lost a lot of pre-war "Senior" motors due in part to badly worn and then abused bearings.

As a side note, I suggest we also caution people with "long stroke" motors to "take it easy" when driving them if they are "stock geared".

With the incredibly low gearing of the pre-war Packards, their long connecting rods are thrashing about with far more violence to the bearing surfaces, at, say 60 miles an hour, than a modern "high-geared" car with its much shorter stroke, at 120 mph. I would not cruise ANY long-stroke low-geared pre-war car at anything higher than 45-50 mph.

Yes, I know all about the famous "25,000 mile 90 mph endurance test results" introducing the 1935 production with "insert" style rod bearings. We know that motor, run day and night, never got a chance to develop sludge in the lower portion of the oil pan casting where the oil pump intake is ! (anyone know how often, or even IF they changed the crankcase oil during that test..? )

I think Fred and I will survive our disagreement in this one area (over whether it is a good shop practice to drop the pans and clean em every couple of years). Dosnt change my admiration for the Kanter group one bit !

Yes, again, an agreement - as Fred points out - times have changed...with very few exceptions, you don't see pre-war "Seniors" tearing down the roads of today at speed (most have been reduced to being little more than costume jewelery to be occasionaly displayed as stationary exhibits at ritzy car shows! All they need to do is drag their elegant carcass from a trailer to their position in the show!

For those of us "hold-outs" who still think a pre-war Senior is one heck of a fun vehicle to be enjoyed for the superior motor cars they are.... Fred and I will have to disagree on the "clean oil pan" issue.

To remove the pan on my 56 clipper, it looks like I need to remove the starter, some steering components and the exhaust crossover pipe. I suspect that there is an optimal process since it was supposed to be done annually. Any hints? Are shop manuals available? BTW, I am new to Packard and new to the site.

The shop manuals are available in the Literature Archive but also feel free to start your own thread in the proper 1955-1956 section to ask any questions for help that you may need. Better than piggybacking on someone else's thread. Incidentally, I also have a 1956 Clipper.

G'day Rome,
to PackardInfo, I invite you to include your '56 Clipper Deluxe in the Packard Vehicle Register.