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Instrument panel looks beautiful, but it looks like your almost doing 80 MPH.
Wes

I ordered a set of shocks from Rock Auto. They ship internationally quite reasonably. They are Monroe shocks. The fronts are the black ones, and the rears are the blue ones. The "OE spectrum" from what I understand from the monroe website is actually their "lower quality" shock compared to the blue one.
The fronts are numbered 5157, and the rears are 31125. Napa lists their house brand shock also as number 5157, and the picture of the rear shocks on the napa website is also blue. I guess Monroe supplies shocks for Napa, but I can't be sure. They are made in the USA
Anyway, they were easy to install. Working on a packard, I don't even have to jack the car up for this job! I just hope I can get some nice weather here to start driving again!


Let's see how my ride and body roll through the turns is with these new shocks....Maybe a rear sway bar is in my future also...but this was the first step to improve ride and handling. The old shocks were from about 2002 or so.
Are all 51-54 front sway bars the same, or is there any thicker one? -I know it is kind of silly increasing sway bars on a packard, but it's fun for me.

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Also, for reference. The shocks I removed were LE10001 on the fronts, which are also monroe. Google shows they are used on early vettes, some chevys and Kaiser Fraiser cars of the era...I think they are the same size as the 5751, but perhaps valving is a little bit difference.
The rears were "Columbus Radial I 84539-27420" but I couldn't find any info online about them.

Regarding Anti sway bars:
packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb ... um=3&post_id=214405#forumpost214405

Thanks for the link. I was thinking about adding a rear bar, but increasing the front bar would also be interesting. Ross and a few others have installed an Addco 916 (I think) on the rear.
The Addco bar seems to be the same thickness as the front bar. Ideally I think I would like to have the rear a little smaller than the front.
I did some measurements of the suspension, looking into the roll centers of the front and rear axles, and those packard engineers knew pretty well what they were doing.
The rear roll center is 11 inches above the ground, and the front roll center is about 1 to 1.5 inches above the ground. (I made some pretty rough measurements.)

I am still studying suspension theory, but those numbers are pretty good for handling given a solid rear axle with leaf springs and a fairly high center of gravity. You usually want to have the rear roll center higher than the front....

I started working on my next winter task. The one freeze plug behind the oil filler tube was weeping a bit, so that will have to come out. I drained the radiator and block of all the coolant. A small bucket and the plug near the starter got the last gallon or so out.
I plan on drilling a hole in the freeze plug, and also trying to cut it with a multi tool, then pry out with a long screwdriver.
My coolant must be about 5 years old, so I will put new coolant in this time also. There is a "glysantine classic" coolant here in Germany that I plan to use.
My lower radiator hose is also held on with modern screw drive clamps, so I will try and find some correct looking "2 wire clamps" or whatever they are called in 2 and 1/4 or 2 and 1/8th size.

I removed the battery tray and fresh air tube for better access, then drilled a 1/2 inch hole in the freeze plug. Hit it inwards with a cold chisel and a hammer just a little bit to break the seal, then was able to pry the plug out with this big screwdriver. Yay! Hope to get the new one installed soon.
I was nervous prying with the screwdriver that I could break the cylinder block, but luckily did no damage.

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I often wind up doing things 2 or 3 times before I get it right
I installed a plug, but it started to drip after I filled the system...not even under pressure.
What did I do wrong? I think the biggest problem was that I drove the plug in by tapping on the center of the plug with a 1 inch dia wooden dowel, and not on the outside. This makes the plug a little smaller. I might give the next plug a whack on the backside with a hammer, the install using a big socket, so that I only apply pressure to the outside ring of the plug while installing.
I think I will try a hardening gasket sealer, although from what I read online the sealer is not what really makes a difference. I do have the 1-61/64 plugs that I got through Kanter a while back, that must be the right size. I could try and get a 50mm plug locally, which would be a smidge bigger than the 1-61/64.
Hope I get this right soon.

I have been putting them in with Loctite with great success. You probably have a scratch on the bore and it leaks there.

Thanks for the advice Ross. I did make my own problems worse when I scratched the bore removing the old plug. I will try and fill the scratch with something like JB weld (Haftstahl here in Germany)
Do you know which number loctite you like for this application?