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I've made several short shakedown runs to sort out problems. So far it's been problems with the rear brakes, speedometer and tailpipe. First car show in 2 weeks.

After five and a half years of work, my '49 Club Sedan made it's maiden voyage to a car show in Clearwater, FL. Drove 60 miles round trip and made it back without being "on the hook"! Need to do some minor fixes before the next show but was very satisfied with the way it drove. Had a ceremonial "first drive" breakfast with car friends at Johnny's Cafe then it was off to the show!

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Congratulations - It has been awesome to follow along. What a great feeling it must have been!

Congratulations! What a fine example of perseverance your restoration blog has been. It's an inspiration to those who undertake a major project that it can be completed in spite of difficulties.

Enjoy every drive in your fine '49 Eight club sedan, you've well earned it.

Steve

Just finished my first long trip in my Packard, drove from St. Petersburg to a car show in Ocala, about 210 miles round trip. It was a traditional 40s and 50s car show with no high-dollar trailer queens allowed! The trip was mostly on the Interstate highway and the car ran very well driving between 55 to 65 mph. Did come away with a things to fix, primarily having to drive in the dark with no instrument lights! They were the one thing I didn't test because you can't tell whether or not they are on in the daylight! Overdrive is finally working now that the OD relay was replaced with a $3.50 cube relay! Want to get the car 100% working and completed by the end of the month!

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Joe I would like to invite you to the Texas Salado meet this April. To entice you I will pay for your room, I know its a long way for the newly built Packard but I would love to have it at our meet and to see you. Well anyhow you thank it over and let us know.





April 5-7, 2019. The 42nd Annual Texas Packard meet will return home to historic Salado, Texas. Salado is located on Interstate 35 just 50 miles from Austin. Headquarters hotel will be the Holiday Inn Express. Make your reservation early as many other groups visit Salado. To get the TPM special rate, you must call the hotel directly at 254 947 4004 and asked for the Packard rate. You cannot get the rate by calling the national 1-800 number. This year's meet will feature an ice cream social, early bird tour, Friday night mixer, Saturday morning parade to the swap meet and show site, seminars, banquet and awards program. Watch the texaspackardmeet.org website and Packard Texas Meet face book page for general information and the actual registration form. ANY QUSTION YOU CAN CALL ME AT 210-573-1531

Joe, If you make the trip to Texas you would have to go by I 10 or Hiway 90. I invite you to stop in my hometown, Marianna, and I will buy you dinner. I would greatly like to see your Club Sedan. The Florida Packard club president , Norm Madsen, also lives in Tallahassee, which is on your way also. Thanks.

I'm finally back working on my '49 Club Sedan after taking the summer off. I'm upgrading it to 12 volts to support the addition of air conditioning so it can be a 4 season car in the Florida heat and humidity. I'm also adding new gauges including a GPS-driven speedometer and electric windshield wipers. I'm posting the pictures of the project on the Packard Club forum because it allows captioning of the pictures which helps to explain the activities. I'll also post some highlights here.

Here's pictures of the new gauges mocked-up in an old dash.

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Got some plastic AC mock-up units from Vintage Air to test fit the AC in my car. Both will mount to the firewall behind the dash out of sight and include AC, heat and defrost. The smaller unit, the Mini, is an easy fit but the larger, the Compac, is better suited cooling capacity wise for the size of the car but is a questionable fit due to the larger size.

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What is the process for getting a mock-up? I've spoken with them quite a bit over the years but they never mentioned that such a thing was possible so I suppose I didn't ask the right questions.