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Thank you, Whippersnapper55! Doing my best and will try not to whine too much more about the cold!

I managed to get a little work done today by first getting the front up as high as I could, then I drained the old oil. I half expected to find several gallons of coolant on the floor when I got here a few days ago as I had to put in so much the last time but none to be found. Instead I see a rather large diameter puddle of transmission fluid near the center of the car so a seal has bit the dust but no real surprise there as it's been sitting for close to four decades! I also see a tiny drip coming from the power steering cylinder.

While underneath I disconnected the fuel line from the rubber hose. I started to say flexible hose but that is not what it was as it was as stiff as steel so I'll take it out entirely! Along those lines (no pun intended), I fetched my portable petrol tank but it is no longer on its safer plastic rolling cart as I must have re-purposed it the last time I was here back in October and indeed I had as I found it at the far side of the shop with an extremely heavy 14" Henney-Packard rear brake assembly on it. Anyway, I need to find out if the fuel in the portable tank is still good (drop a match into it? Just kidding!) and if it is, to decide if I want to connect up an electric fuel pump or see of the car's own mechanical pump will do the job - or both. Either way, I've got to get some oil into it first so will have to take a half-day to go into town. The car's own tank was cleaned and sealed decades ago but probably is in dire need again so perhaps better to replace it.

And finally, I did a quick triage of the stick shift lever and have concluded that the problem is at the wheel. I've worked on these before so I know what I have to do but I was actually hoping it was down below and after using PB Blaster on it, I can see that everything down there is free.

One question too. Although I'll eventually drop the pan, in the meantime is there something I should get while in town to pour into it to get out a bit of the sludge, if any, while the drain plug is removed? The oil coming out looked clean and it was a rebuilt engine so I don't expect there is much.

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The task today, after spending half of it going into town (it is VERY rural here) was to put in fresh oil and top off the coolant. After putting back in the oil pan's drain plug, I added oil, then dug out a filter from my stock. Since they were near the top of a 9' shelf and I wasn't sure which was needed, I brought down two different types but the C-4 was much larger and apparently for my former 1940 110 Club Sedan. Taking off the filter housing cover, I took out the old one, then used a hand pump to remove the somewhat sludgy stuff at the bottom, wiped it out with a clean rag, then put in the new. However, the one I took out was a C134 and the new ones are C134PL, which are smaller around. Which is the right one. C134 or C134PL? The lengths seemed to be the same.

When I was here in October, I managed to get as far as adding some coolant but after a couple gallons, I ran out and it still wasn't full so I bought more today. I put in one full gallon, then started on the second but realized that there was a pinhole in the radiator housing so I'll need to deal with that. I do have spares, though, so will check to see if any are usable or whether it needs to be repaired or replaced. My goal this visit is just to see if it will start up and run so the pin hole won't be a problem just yet but obviously will need to be tended to eventually.

By then I had frost coming out of my mouth and realized that I had run out of propane so the heater was just blowing air! I connected up a small tank to work a while longer but it was dark by then with a walk of about a block over an unlit snow-covered gravel road so I called it a day.

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As mentioned above, the oil filter I removed was a Fram C134 while those I had in stock were Fram C134PL, which were much smaller in diameter and made of paper. Which is the proper one? I see the Fram C134PL listed here in the interchange area as a replacement but it seems tiny compared to the one I removed which was made of metal. Is there a benefit to all the space around the C134PL?

Also, does the smaller rubber gasket go underneath it over the post?

Jambed some body seam putty into the water outlet to be sure it didn't seep for a while as I needed to take out the spark plugs and didn't want coolant running into the cylinders. When I was here in October, I took them out and poured in some oil so needed to crank it over without the plugs to be sure it had gotten blown out. I should have performed a compression test while they were out but didn't think of it so may do that tomorrow.

Also got the temporary fuel system plumbed directly to the inlet of the filter and powered it up to see if the accelerator pump in the carburetor was still working and it is! Also wanted to be sure that the floats were working so let the pump run for a while and no sign of overflows.

Since I was going to crank it over using a 12v battery, I disconnected power to the car itself by removing all wires at the starter solenoid, hot-wired the coil, then cranked again with the plugs reinstalled but no firing. Looked at the points which appeared oxidized so pulled them out for a quick cleaning, then reassembled but haven't yet checked the gap adjustment. Tried cranking again but still no spark, which I can tell by connecting a spare and grounding it. Tomorrow I'll check to be sure of a good ground and all the other obvious things like the coil or condenser having gone bad. About that time it started really snowing so walked the block back to the house while still able with enough light to navigate!

In the meantime, in case anyone is reading this, I have another question. I noticed that the oil filler cap (which is filthy) is of a different style than that of a 1951 300 engine sitting nearby. Should the 1954 Patrician have the same type? Also, the oil filler tube has some wiggle to it but the other engine's is tight. How can it be made tighter short of installing a new one?

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Although I'll be here for another week, the main objective has been obtained: it runs! Using an ohm meter, I checked that the distributor was grounded and it was so the next thing was to check the point gap and, as I suspected, there was virtually none. Got it to the high lobe, loosened the screw and turning the adjustment to what looked like a good gap, then checking it with a gauge, I had hit it dead-on by eyeball. I used to be really good that and apparently still am!

Once adjusted, the 359 started almost instantly and quickly settled down to a nice idle with absolutely no lifter noise but I ran it only until the thermostat opened and the housing started leaking so it didn't get a good workout. I removed the thermostat housing which is as thick as new everywhere EXCEPT for one area where it is corroded through so will fix that tomorrow. Even the thermostat hold-in spring was still silver steel. By the way, this engine still has the aluminum head but the spark plug and thermostat housing holes had stainless Heli-coils installed. The parts car patrician has the 359 too, of course, but it has a replacement cast iron head.

However, there was a mess of apparently coagulated coolant under the thermostat housing and for now I may start it up again to see if the pump can push it out but I hope someone will chime in to say that that's a terrible idea as I know it will make a mess! In the photo below, it's really not as bad as it looks as much of what you see is just gasket sealant that went into the hole when I took off the housing.

Since there was still some oil in the cylinders, it smoked profusely when it started and for the first minute or two to the point that I had to open two roll-up doors and a window while holding my breath. Worked another 45 minutes or so but by the time I was done my hands felt like ice so I had call it a day and head back to the house.

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Hey Don, that oil cap you show is the wrong one, the original is a little bigger and has I believe 6 radial ridges on the top. But you have a great riding Packard there so she's worth the effort! Oh, and I never saw such a gunked up head in my life. You may have to remove the head and boil it out to get it cleaned out.

Either way, good luck!

Steve

Steve, thank you for the information. This engine had been fully rebuild decades ago and was one of my every-day cars both before and after that although it's a bit stiff at the rear when I had the springs reworked. It rides high now so I'll be using the springs from the parts car to get it back where it belongs. Other than that, it was indeed a great car to drive and the 359's power was amazing! Even at highway speeds, if the pedal was floored you would be sunk back into the seat with all the torque.

These first posts have been more than a bit tedious but necessary in order to learn how to proceed. Taking an old car out of long-term storage is rather fun, at least to me, though and this one is proving far easier than my 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special! That one took several years of my short work-visits.

As for the gunk in the water outlet, I suspect it was crystallized coolant caused by electrolysis between the aluminum head and steel water outlet so was perhaps confined to that area. While the thermostat housing was out being repaired, I put on a temporary piece from stock and adapted it to a catch-tank so that I could start the engine and blow out some of it. With about a gallon pushed out, there was only a tiny bit of the gunk so I went ahead and put back on the repaired housing today along with a new hose. Will try to get it up to temperature tomorrow once the sealant has had time to cure. (I thought I had taken a photo of it with the hose attached but apparently not so will take and upload one tomorrow.)

Then I decided to take a look at the stuck shifter problem but so far I'm a bit baffled! I took off the horn ring and was about to pill the wheel when I realized that the shaft from the shift lever down to the shift lever is completely free. However, it won't budge so I'll have to refer to some other postings that I recall seeing about this issue. In the meantime, I am open to ideas of what to check!

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I suspect you are going to find some corrosion and rust on the shift tube at the bottom which is causing the problem. Don't remember what motion you were referring to as stuck but if it is the in/out of the lever the most likely culprit is the selector has rusted or seized to the splines on the shift tube and cannot slide.

Howard, thank you but a Patrician was Ultramatic-only, which is why it doesn't make sense that it be stuck. It pivots only with no slider for the two arms that a manual has.