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Is Howard hanging out a shingle to make rubber parts for our Packard cars??
John

Having a glorious warm weekend here in Chicagoland so decided to get to the bottom of what was going on with the acceleration stumbling problem. First I used a mitivac to check that the vac advance was good, and is still is. Then checked for vacuum leaks...no found. Then i I tore apart the climatizer section of the carb and it was sticky. So fixed that, car now fast idles correctly. Still stumbles on acceration. Called Ross for a consult. He had me check for fuel squirting out of the accel jets, nothing nada. So torn the carb apart and found this sad looking accel pump. This was replaced when i rebuilt the carb. I had a spare carb that I pulled out of a swap meet for nearly nothing. While the carb itself is grimey the accel pump in it was like new. So I swapped it. But still no gas, so took the jets off and still nothing. Finally it broke loose. The little brass plumbbob looking was gummed up and stuck. Now with that free , everything working. I think once this gummed up, I think the pressure of trying to compress that gas blew out the old pump. Anyway, with everything back together, she ran like a top. From her about 50 miles today. No more stalling or stumbles.

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Feels good when you fix it yourself!

So...now I am looking at tires. The "rollers" I have on my car are now 11 years old. They are cheap walmart tires (<$40 each) in good shape, and have low mileage and low sun exposure. But, I really want some white walls, also these are are a little short compared to what the original tires would have been.

I found these, which are ~27" tall. Pricey, but I like the look. Also Coker makes one that looks like a pie-crust tire, but at a radial. But those are expensive as well.

I found some cheaper ones, but they tend to run shorter. I'm looking at the 205 or 215 75R15.

What is everyone else running? I don't want that oversize white wall look, where it looks like whitewall all the way to the tread, which I think looks horrible.

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Toward the back of the DiamondBack catalog is an xref chart showing some of the dimensions of old vs modern sizes.

In summary, the original 760 or 800-15s were approx 28 1/2" and 29 1/2" tall respectively. Closest in modern radials to that diameter is the 225-75 at 28" or the 235-75 at 29". To keep the speedo somewhere near the correct reading I would stick with those sizes or else bite the bullet and get the bias look radials from Coker or others. If you do go with another size there are places with calculator tools which can give an indication of the speedo difference you will encounter. If it would be a significant difference you might opt for one of the speedo places to build a custom converter.

I put 225-75s on the 47 which originally had 710s just to keep the correct diameter. Almost identical in that respect but the radials are fatter or wider than stock so if the car ever gets another set it will probably be in the bias look radials.

235-75 R15's on my 56 Exec. Altho they are just ever so slightly too wide. Just slightly rub frame on full lock and one rear tire slightly scrubs inner fender well on very "off camber" terrain.

225-75 R15's should be perfect.

If u like the existing tires but want WW's maybe try this:

MANY tire mafg'ers produce all tires as white walls. The black walls are only some kind of a thin rubber coating over the white.
So maybe take a carpet knife of something and trim aray a very thin amount of black rubber to expose the white wall hidden underneath it.

Not all tires are made that waay but many many are.

I think I am going to go with the 760R15's from American Classics. If you order from Summit Racing, there is free shipping. They have the look I am going for and match the original size as close as possible. So plybias look, but actually a radial. My car at this point is a fair weather/non-highway driver.

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WOW, nice job on the restore! I don't remember if it was you or someone else who said to set the spark plugs at .025. I did all 8 and then I read the material from these forums showing .028. So Packard says .028. Now what? I have a 1953 Clipper Deluxe.

BTW, the head was NOT cracked. It was the water from the radiator hose leaking onto the head. The owner thought it was coming from the head for 7 1/2 years. It sat in his garage waiting for me. I bought one off of ebay and when I finally magnefluxed it the crack was 6" long so I pitched it. Then I changed the top radiator hose and we started the old girl and no cracked head! After an ignition coil and new points she started up and purrrrrrrrs. Now I have a new mechanic doing brakes and carb and flushes.

BTW, what is the best way to drain the trans and flush? It has Mercedes parts. And do I use Dex3? Thank you for your advise. Brenda

I was going to put on 820.15 like the L78's on there now for 30 years but I think, like you, I am going with the American Classic Radials. So nice!