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Just bought the car. Overheats very quickly. I 5-6 minutes. Boils over. IR thermometer shows hotter in rear of engine. Engine runs great, starts, smooth. The middle eight engine. Not Super Eight.

I was suggested to pull front clip and remove large brass squarish tube from engine as may be clogged. Checked everything I can see, otherwise.

Ideas?

Which club sedan? 120, eight, super eight or V12?

The middle eight engine as you call it would be the Eight. It does not have a water distribution tube inserted from the front, rather it uses a water jacket side cover plate to perform that function.

Are your shutters open? Have you inspected the water pump to make sure the impellor is still present and functioning? You might also want to try a gravity flow rate test on the radiator to see if it's anywhere near capable of handing the heat generated.

Here is a link to the thread a while back on Over heating 101. This should give you a good starting point of your issue.

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=16042&forum=4

Thanks
James From
Kanter Auto Products

Welcome new Packard owner, and Pinfo poster.
I have a recored radiator from an abandoned restoration project ready to ship.

DAF

OVERHEATING disc., cont:

By the early 1920's, cooling system engineering technology (well...maybe not so much in the cheaper mass production cars) had advanced to the point where a properly maintained automobile is not capable of over-heating.

For example, the predecessor of the GreyHound Bus company used "stretched" Packards to regularly beat the express trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even in summer, with the burning heat "climbing the Grape-vine" and tearing across the Central Valley of California.

So what's the problem ? Will even a properly maintained Packard over-heat today ?

Yes - There is a problem that many restorers miss. Simple chemistry.

You can "boil out" and "rod" a radiator till you are blue in the face. But there comes a point at which the tube walls cannot conduct heat away from the water the way they were originally engineered.

Packards, especially the "Seniors" from the 1930s that did not have thermostats in the water line, are UNDER-cooled; hard to get them to come up to operating temp. That fantastic shutter mechanism allows too much air to "bleed thru" the shutters even when closed.

The answer...a NEW RADIATOR CORE ! PROPERLY "sized" for the application. Modern radiator cores are even more efficient than what your Packard had when new.

So - first go thru the "check-list" reference material provided by others in this "thread". Once you have removed the water-jacket plates and ruled that, and the other questions out, you know what you have to do !

Good morning James...Your overheating video is wonderful...I wish I had had it to view when I was working on 'Miss Purdence'...She is fine now, but really had me talking to myself a few years ago. These old Packard girls really need to feel wanted in order to operate properly. Ernie

The car needs a complete cooling system service and block cleaning to remove dirt before a new radiator is installed.
As well, the engine should be evaluated for compression and vacuum.

Prior to 1933 Packard was using cellular radiators. I wouldn't put tubed radiators into cars with cellular. Except I think the 32 V-12 used a tubed radiator.

As for the shutter system, if it sticks closed the car will overheat like a mother @#$%&*.

What is the problem with putting a tube radiator into an originally cellular car?? Packard did that with the 320, 384 and V-12's in later years with no apparent negative effects.

Please explain

Why put a non-authentic radiator into a classic car? If a car has a honey comb radiator it will look like complete shit. I remember Hibernia putting tubed radiators into 1920's Packards. I told them they didn't know anything about engines.

I guess you might as well put a clutch fan and a V-8 into the thing.

Rolls was using cellular right into the late 1960's so they do work.

A little while back I was looking at a J Duesenberg with the original Veed cellular cored radiator. Can you imagine?