Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Very interesting! In all my years of looking at crankshafts, I've never seen one cracked in that fashion. It does appear to be a casting flaw which spread.

Since Packard V8 cranks are still thick on the ground, I'd not chance using that one.

As to grooving the cam journals, I've never seen that done to a Packard V8.

Agree, since it's the main bearings which fail first, why would anyone want more oil to the cam bearings?

jack vines

Thanks jack

Think I'll use another cam

When the shop was recently magnifluxing the crank on my 1965 Imperial LeBaron, they found that it had cracks all over and, as it came from a good-running low mileage rebuild, it was a surprise, especially as nothing was visible. Fortunately I had a spare but the bottom line is, if you have it out, have it magnifluxed. It's inexpensive and nice insurance that could protect from catastrophic damage later.

This has been posted over and over.

But. Did the air vent ever get discussed.

If the plate and body are warped . or anything that lets the gears pull air from the vent tube.

I have not seen vents in other pumps.

Is that vent for vacuum pump. Been awhile since I've seen complete 56 pump.

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FWIW, I've never seen a plate or body warped enough to leak air. They're usually under the oil level anyway.

The most worn area is usually the lower end of the pump drive shaft and the pump body where the shaft rides.

FWIW, Packard engineers spent a lot of time worrying about the pressure relief valve opening. The first Service Bulletin dealer fix was adding the copper dip tube to keep the opening below oil level in the pan. The second fix was filling the cross pin retaining holes, then drilling and tapping the pressure relief opening for a threaded plug.

It is to be wondered why they did this, as every pressure relief piston I have seen in core engines is always stuck in the bore and requires major effort just to remove it. With that tight fit, how much air could ever enter there?

jack vines

On ebay

ebay.com/itm/Packard-parts/333489912780?hash=item4da58c3bcc:g:~uMAAOSwLQhdwyZS

Who did this pump?

Wonder where that's coming from?

That's an Oldsmobile high volume oil pump, pickup and while it isn't shown clearly in the photos, it looks like my adapter kit. I do not recognize the milled cut on the end of the oil pump pressure relief spring housing. That's not done on the Melling pumps I supply.

He's asking $500 and my list price for the same setup is $395.

I recently had the Old's pump kit installed on my 56 Patrician. I used the standard pump-not the high volume pump. The oil pressure went from mid gage to high and now I am pushing oil out the rear engine seal. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Any ideas as to why this happened?

Could this be an early Craig pump.

Jack Vines wrote:

Quote:
Jack, with all due respect, I believe you have your wires crossed on the timeline of service engineering WRT to the lifter noise and oil pump changes.

The brazing/threading/plugging of the original V8 oil pump was a confidential and limited field trial via memo to Zone offices only. A later follow-up memo advised of a redesigned pump for production. That second design pump body featured not only a plugged pressure relief port, but a new, longer valve and other related changes to the casting. Dealers were specifically instructed NOT to install the second design pump on earlier cars, but inspect the existing pump and install the sump tube kit.

Packard must have found some problem with leakage with the origin valve design or they never would have put the tube kit out there. Only an audit of the factory engineering drawings for BOTH pump bodies and their related might give us any further factual detail, but I've lost interest in pursuing that.

Bob Aller, who was a Zone man, claimed the real source of the problem and a fix was found too late to issue a bulletin. When I asked for details about this, the only answer I got was to send him my pump, but I wasn't ready to do that. I later found out from others that culprit was wear between the driving shaft and pump body, and the fix was to true up the bushing and machine the body for a bushing.

Meanwhile, Craig had twisted my arm to buy one of the adapter kits from his initial run, and I sourced the Melling pump and pickup locally. However, I wasn't very comfortable with the instructions requirement for RTV, but after the complaints I've heard about the machine work on those early runs, I hope to never have to use it.