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Bearing Buddies are most commonly used on boat trailers where the trailer is immersed into fresh or salt water. A few squirts of grease after each day's immersion generally keeps the bearings in good shape. I put them onto the car trailer as car trailers very rarely have their axle bearings repacked, and the bearings tend to run warmish with a Packard on the trailer, particularly on the disc braked front axle. PT

Thank you very much for the explanation. Actually I understood it from the photos but I appreciate the description. Never saw one before but they seem handy, especially for a trailer.

Wednesday 19th September, 2018

Not much has happened with/to the chassis since it arrived a week and a half ago. Life seemed to get in the way! Some things have transpired though. One was having the local tyre(tire) service remove and dispose of the flat tyres on the three wheels that were mounted on the chassis. Found there were 2 x 6" wide limo wheels while the other wheel is 5" wide. The 2 limo wheels both have good inner rims while the 5" wheel has surface rust but looks like it'll clean up OK. Did a "walk around" of the chassis and noticed a number of things. For one, the chassis is "boxed" from the front of X member to the hump over the diff. It's also comparatively shallow in depth, at least from my memories of underneath the '41 and it's chassis which had a deep cross-section. No tailshaft, but I already knew that, and there's no rear sway bar. But there's no clutch plate or pressure plate, wasn't expecting that! One thing that caught my attention was the method of mounting the front engine mount to the chassis. Must be too accustomed to pre-war cars where the front crossmember supports the yoke that mounts to the engine. Instead there are a couple of "flying buttresses" mounted on the front crossmember that project forward of it and support the yoke. I also found there wasn't a clutch cable. The gear linkages from the column to the trans, including the front external lever on the trans, are also MIA.

But the matter which really caught my attention was the spark plugs. Originally I thought all was OK with leads on all the plugs. However, in removing some of the leads it was obvious all was not OK! 4 plugs just snapped of when attempting to remove the leads and closer inspection revealed that the plugs must have been sitting in water at some stage because there was a lot of rust and crud build-up around the plug indent locations on the head. Cleaned all the plug indents up then used penetrant and removed 2 of the remaining 4 "easily" but the other 2 snapped off like the previous 4. I'm now worried about the internal condition of the engine. Previously I was expecting at least stuck valves from sitting for 25 years, now there's more than a possibility of water ingress into the cylinders. Looks like, instead of removing the valve chamber covers to check valve operation, I'll remove the head. Also ascertained the engine doesn't turn over, which is not surprising considering what's been discovered to date. One positive though, the oil is a beautiful golden colour.

Tomorrow GaryZ from Victoria is calling in to pick up the parts I rounded up for him from the guy who parted out the '48 chassis a few months back. He's also welcome to snag any parts off the Limo chassis which catch his eye.

EDIT - Just noticed the casting dates on the block and head match! I have a "matching numbers" Packard, well a Packard engine at least!

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Peter (Peter Packard), the white BMW looks like a R60 with R75 engine.

Interesting on the motor mount but sure doesn't look like something I would think is a factory job. Do you know any history of the chassis like maybe if it started out life as a six and someone changed to an eight. If it was exported a lot of export cars were sixes because of the various importing country taxes so maybe it was way underpowered and ??

Be nice if it still had a front clip to see if it was an eight or at least had the possibility from the start. Interesting thought on any of the six clips -- Is there enough room to move the radiator forward and fit an eight in the short fenders.

Hello Guscha, The BMW is a 1955 R50 ( 500cc), with a R75
( 750cc) motor, 5 speed box and R75 diff shoehorned in. I bought it for my wife to use but she is 125 lbs and finds it a bit heavy at 186 kg. The bike has an electric leg which is handy. PT

Howard,
You got me to thinking a somewhat rare occurrence, and it made me wonder what the setup is in my '50 Eight Sedan. Turns out it's the same, or at least very similar, as that for the '48 Limo chassis. What struck me in taking the photos of the '50 is that the radiator is completly contained and supported by the front clip.

Concerning the history of the chassis, Peter Packard advises it was a Martin and King bodied funeral car in the NSW country town of Cooma. Apparently the body suffered because of all the wood in it, that's why it's no longer extant. But Peter has some doors and other parts off it, if I ever should decide to restore it to it's former glory!

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My 47 356 engine mount bolts directly onto the crossmember with no extensions. Along with the front mount the 356 engine has two small stabilizer brackets on either side which the smaller engines do not have. Those brackets are located about where the bolts into the crossmember are located for your extended mounts. I wonder if the setup you have is something for export or right hand drive cars or if it was common to all 22-23 series. Anyone have a 22-23 US left hand drive motor mount photo to share?

I have some photos somewhere of Mal's Limo when it was in one piece. Just have to find them. I shall try. PT

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Howard, Would be good to know.

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Peter, Would be interested to see them.