Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

(1941 Packard 110 Club Coupe)
Sorry if this is another often asked question (s) I was trying to locate previous posts that dealt with car stalling often especially when coming off the freeway at the end of the off ramp.
Also, I cannot seem to find clear illustrations for aligning the distributor with oil pump to obtain correct timing setting for stock 1941 Packard 110 Club Coupe. Thank you for any help or suggestions. Sincerely. John

Distributor video

Thank you for your reply. I remember seeing this video before however, he does not go into detail how to set up the oil pump correctly to the distributor on a 6 cylinder Packard (110) which I have. I had found out that they are set up differently then the 8 cylinder motors that he is working with in the video.
Thank you again for your help and information. I will keep this video as he does share what I believe is useful information for sure.
Thanks again, John

Instructions on positioning the engine and oil pump gears are given in a few paragraphs before the six gear is shown in figure 49 of this manual. It is exactly the same photo as shown on page 40 in the engine section of the full 46-50 manual but in this single booklet scan page numbers are missing but the photos are much better. You can see the punch marks they refer to at the end of the gear.

Thank you very much for this information. Most of the information that I gathered so far came together after looking at what you have sent so, I thank you. Perhaps tomorrow I will proceed to correctly align the oil pump with the distributor so that I can bring the timing back into the correct specs. Hopefully I can get a little more out of the engine or at least normal performance.

Thank you for you all your help, John

I have never aligned a distributor to an oil pump before and have always just installed everything, then arranged the wires appropriately in the cap. I didn’t even know that there was such a setting so after learning about it just recently, I tried to do so on my 1951 but see no punch mark. In fact, the manual implies to make the punch mark before removing the pump which would have been difficult in my case as it was missing the pump when I bought it. Should the punch mark be there on this era of engine?

Overdrive? May be an issue requiring a throttle guard...commonly known as a dashpot to bring the idle down gradually...

I have tried to bring in the timing by moving the wires as I knew that trick. No luck. Car would not even start one way or the other. The timing is so far off from improper set up I believe that it did not work. Having moved the distributor - advancing as far as could go the RPM picked up along with the vacuum however, still too low and the pointer still was not even close to the mark on the damper. In which convinced me that it was not set up correctly from the rebuild shop. The car DOES NOT have overdrive.
Thank you all for your input. You are greatly appreciated. Feel free to add any information that might come to mind. Sincerely, John

It sounds like you need to move the plug wires one step toward "advance". That should get you to where your distributor will be within the range of adjustment.

On my '37 120 8 cylinder with an Autolite distributor, the # 1 plug wire is at about 7 o'clock on the distributor cap.
I don't know whether the distributor is properly indexed with the oil pump slot or if the Octane Selector pointer is correctly indexed with the distributor body, but the engine runs well.

For the flywheel marks to be exactly correct, the distributor would need to be correctly indexed to the oil pump shaft, the point gap would need to be correct, the distributor cam would and bushings would need to be un-worn, the timing chain would need to be in good condition, and the distributor drive gears would need to be in good condition.

Two assumptions regarding the following: your timing is always too retarded, and you have the type of dizzy where the vac advance twists the whole thing. If you have a Delco that doesn't twist with the vac advance then you can rotate the dizzy any where you like by loosening the horizontal clamp screw on the retainer plate. Otherwise:

Turn the engine to the correct timing mark, # 1 ready to fire. Pull the dizzy out an inch or so. Take out the two long bolts that retain the oil pump (1/2 inch heads) . Pull the oil pump absolutely straight out and note carefully by eye or with a marker where the gear is. Move it very carefully one tooth to the right. Push the pump absolutely straight back in and bolt it down. Now push your dizzy back in and it should settle slightly ccw from where it was. Set your timing per my video--you should be in the center of the adjustment range.

Retarded timing on these flatheads absolutely kills their performance and make them run scorching hot.