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No, that was what the trunk was for . . . .


:)


I'm of the opinion that I might cut the bottom of the doors to clear the fender. Not sure how that would look, but it's a thought. I'm sure that you'll come up with something.


Happy projecting.

Harness, loom and turn signal have arrived. That was pretty darn quick!

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While I was under the car changing the oil in the motor, I noticed the exhaust looked a bit different.

Sure enough it's got an electrically controlled exhaust cutout. You can go from quiet elegance to rowdy hotrod with a flick of a switch!

Also, I finally found the fuel pump. It wasn't back by the tank as expected, but tucked up around half way back in the framerail.

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That’s quite a setup! Bypasses are illegal in some states so be careful.

In preparation for the new harness going in, I needed to strip everything out of the dash.

A few calls to Flack later for guidance on how things came apart without using a hammer, I finally got it all apart. I can see the severed remnants of the original harness. It was cut there and at the bottom of the firewall.

I'm going to try to paint the dash structure before everything goes back in as I really don't want to pull it apart again later.

Lastly when I was changing the engine oil, I had a heck of a time finding the right socket that would fit. Then I finally got a good look at the bolt. Had to use a open wrech on it. Pretty sure didn't use oblong headed bolts.

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Beautiful day here so I took the opportunity to get my Packard's stall mate out for a run. With her out of the garage I am able to open the doors fully. FYI Kev, a normal fully open door measures 40 inches from the decorative rib detail on the B pillar to the inside corner of the door panel. Thought you could use that as a reference when deciding what to do with the fenders to know just how occluded yours are from fully open. Hope you have nice weather there too, rather capricious this time of year.
Bob J.

Thanks Bob! That is most helpful

You might create a Custom by Kev treatment and come up with a cross between the Packard flowing profile and a Cord squared profile to gain the extra opening room needed. Looking from the top another option might be to also throw in a version where some cars gained door clearance by having a taper or slight angle at the rear of the fender. Profile was a few less inches on the door side than on the outer side.

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Howard, that for sure is an option. But that degree of metal work is beyond my skill set.

I'm going to focus on doing an inside out resto on the car. So I am make sure it's mechanical sorted and also that I can drive it with my clothes getting filthy.

For me, the largest mountain to climb is finding a top assemble.

Since I had the dash apart, it was time to clean up the dash structure and repaint it. According to Flackmaster it should be a very dark brown, not body color.

So a little OTC rattle can paint met the bill for this project. For future reference Rustoleum Dark Walnut is about the darkest brown they offer.

I also stripped and painted the door reveal moldings as those should be the same color as well.

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