Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Good Evening…I have been driving our 23rd Series 288 weekly for eleven years. Miss Prudence has an annual oil change with Mobil 1 - 10-30. She receives Marvel Mystery Oil according to the instructions on the bottle. Never a problem of anything sticking or running rough if the points are clean. Ernie in Arizona

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Oops…She runs on Chevron 87 which is Top Tier Dinosaur Juice. She seems to love it, Ernie in Arizona

Let’s see if David Packard checks in on this subject. Ernie in Arizona…Not far from David.

Ah ha! Yes another “duh” moment. Space age here in Portland runs 93 no ethanol. That with a top oiler full of mystery oil, and I dreaming already. But I did have a question about the top oiler …

So I got one of these cool guys from ampco but now do I need to get an plate to go between and carb gasket and the intake in order to run the oil tube into the system?? It didn’t come with a plate
Village idiot here!

Right. Ethanol gas is a net energy consumer, unless it's produced from agwaste as in Brazil and as Henry Ford intended his Model T and Fordson tractor, comprising half the vehicles on the world's roads and fields by 1920. Al Gore and other former proponents long since admit ethanol gas from corn a boondoggle, and regardless of source, lower in BTUs than straight gas, with the attendant hydroscopic malady.

If you can get straight gas, incrementally more power to you. Meanwhile, avgas is no better than auto gas, but some guys like the sound of it; marketing takes advantage of unrequited testosterone.
Long ago, when i was young and under the apple bough, I filled up my then '40 120 at an area airport where a couple friends flew everything from a '74 Cessna 180 Sky Wagon tail dragger, '56 Twin Beech, a pair of P-51s; one R-R Merlined and t'other Packard Merlined and no, they didn't "sound" different and there was no, repeat n o, difference 'twixt them series by series other than the Brit built version having nicer external hand finishing; and one of only 18 P-40s then flying in the world.

My Packard felt not a trace improved while i felt like a jerk adding that much more lead into the fragile environment we all share. So much for my One-Twenty's owner's manual suggesting other motorists look to Packard drivers as setting an example of responsible and safe driving.

Again, Big Kev, above, simply sums it.

Blake, see if there's an existing port/plug on your intake manifold. My '47 Super delivered w/ Electromatic which i had rebuilt and worked as intended, but i disliked the robotic aspect and that your clutch pedal depressed at long lights, doing your throw out bearing no favors, a concern far from Packard's mind as they were then, as Dutch Darrin observed in late '39/'40, "so afraid of GM they couldn't see straight," not just because of the racy new GM C body but HydraMatic. In fact, Packard even ran ads suggesting those in city traffic might all day long leave their car in second gear w/ OD engaged for a de facto automatic transmission, certainly no good for your pressure plate, especially in Pittsburgh or San Francisco.

But Packard was fast fading and got their second stay of execution thanks to fat war contracts (1935's 120 their first stay), the Merlin agreement rewritten by their legal counsel, Henry E. Bodman, the guide for government contracts for years to come, and here we are today w/ the $1.5 trillion w/ a T F-35 contractors' feeding frenzy, enough to erase a l l our nation's student loans.

So i removed it and plumbed my Ampco/Vaco top oiler into that existing vacuum orifice (pictured, previous post this thread). Adjust so you use a quart of Marvel every 1,000 to 1,200 miles and you'll be okay. As mentioned, a late friend, as a very young '37 Willys coupe- and occasionally supercharged '37 Cord Phaeton-driving wrench during War II --there was never a gas shortage, witness the PT boats gas-engined for simplified logistics, such gas hogs they oft had to be towed back to base by destroyers after sortees, the German Diesel Schnellboots superior and faster, fine as the PT's mahogany woodwork was -- at the Alameda Naval Air Station said Pan Am's chief of maintenance swore by Marvel, ordered it by the 55-gallon drum. Any trouble w/ those big 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney Wasps and Wright Cyclones meant a long, wet walk home.

So your missing plate nice, but mightn't be needed.

Still, all us young bucks wish we could’ve flown in a Merlin more easily than is possible now

We've been around this horn about as much as the earth rotates on this one.
Valve seat damage was corrected with metallurgy not lead. That's why there's replacement valve seats.
TEL is and was developed as an octane booster which was used because early refineries had issues maintaining octane in fuels. I have some articles from Hydrocarbon Processing about the history of refinery from their 100 year issues. Search, if you're curious. That's where the first "knock" came from, low octane gas. Octane wasn't regulated or even known at the time as it's today. And those were low compression era. Second wave in the high compression era.
Other factors like too lean will cause valve burning issues as well as too rich carboning. In the old lead gas days, we had spark plug cleaning machines because of the fuel deposits. Spec ash content was high. Valves were not easily cleaned but a valve job/lapping on the seats was common. So in my world you're taking a giant costly step backward for naught thinking you're helping yourself.
As far as I can ascertain, ALL, road vehicles can not use lead. No grandfathers. That's why the additive substitutes are non-lead based, sodium, etc. As far as I last heard there's no lead gas in the world for vehicles now. I saw an article of the last country a few years now.
You can do as you please. I doubt the EPA police would know but some plumbophobe may report you and guess what you just went public! Some green peacer is saying "how sweet it is!"
Lead's probably going out of AV gas as soon as they can reliably replace. Already in with SAF (sustainable aviation fuels) jet fuels. Total bogus but it appeases the opposition and climatees.

Why are we scoffing at environmentalists?

Many here gathered are such. The late Terry Ehrich, publisher of Hemmings Motor News, the much missed Special Interest Autos, earlier with the New York Times Review of Books, was an arborist and ardent environmentalist, as were/are autoholics Paul Newman, James Garner, Dave Garroway, Steve Allen (co-owner of an LA motorbike store), Indy race team co-owner Dave Letterman.

Packard long advertised in the National Geographic, as well as Fortune, Collier's, the New Yorker, and Literary Digest.

Every "movement" has its crackpots. Some movements have armies of them.
Government is a blunt and clumsy tool.