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400 cars and no other Packards at the show, except for a '55 Clipper that got turned into a low rider. Not sure if it counts.

Lots of interest in both the cars. Lots of conversations, lots of pictures.




Got really hot in the afternoon, up to about 100. The drive back to the trailer was maybe 10 miles in the heat, with the last mile up a long hill. The temp gauge was pushing past the P by the time I got the car on the trailer. Temps on the upper tank were 195+, rear of the block was 215+. Soon after I shut it off some coolant drained out of the overflow tube.




A little too hot for my taste. I may run some Evaporust to see if I can clean the inside of the block and passages. Radiator was professionally flushed, thermostat, hoses, radiator cap are all replaced.

Brother in law mentioned that I'm still getting blue smoke on take off, even though I can't see it from inside the car. I'm going to switch back to 15W-40 to see if that helps. Otherwise I probably have some ring issues.

Kevin

Changed the oil out today for Rotella 15W-40 like I had before. The Valvoline VR1 10W-30 was getting past the rings and leaving blue smoke. I tried out the VR1 because it has high zinc, but it's only made in 10W-30, 20W-50, and straight 30W. After some research it looks like Rotella still currently has about 1200 ppm zinc, which is good. So Rotella it is since my rings are worn and I'm tired of burning oil.

Initial results are positive, haven't seen any blue smoke from inside the car now. We'll see how it goes.

Went on a nice drive with a few friends. A '57 Chevy, a'30 Ford, and another 20's Ford that has been done into a tasteful 50's style rod. Total about 70 miles on country roads through beautiful scenery and a stretch on the freeway. Temps for the first half were 100 degrees and the car started fairly cool. It got warm up a long hill on the freeway, and some when I wasn't moving at a consistent speed. But overall did pretty well. I think it will be better once I run some Thermocure through the cooling system.

Nice sunset drive tonight with my wife. Nice colors, no wind. Had a few people ask to take pictures of the car while it was parked.

Finally got around to pulling the grille and front bumper off of Rusty McRustface. The grille was only attached with three bolts because it had been off before. The bolts holding the bumper brackets to the frame were pretty bad though.




The grille on my Panama isn't terrible, but there is pitting on the center piece, and the upper piece has a lot of scratches and swirls.







I disassembled and cleaned up the donor grille, then waxed it. It came out pretty nice I'd say. Probably an 8/10. There are some imperfections for sure.







Looks like the original owner broke off two bolts in the mounting tabs for the grille. One on each side. That leaves me with three to mount with. Should be sufficient, right? I don't want to mess with drilling out the broken bolts....I hear these pot metal grilles are prone to cracking.





Now the donor bumper from Rusty McRustface is another matter. It's rougher than I thought. Lots of bends, lots of rust. I don't know that replacing the ugly one on my car would be much of an upgrade. I'm going to mess with it and see what I can do. Maybe I'll send it out to be rechromed and then replace my original bumper when it's done.

-Kevin

Finally got around to dropping my fuel tank (again) to see if I could figure out what is going on with my fuel sender. Tank and sender are new, and the fuel gauge is NOS. When the tank is completely full the gauge reads 1/2 Full. When the gauge hits Empty I have anywhere from 0-10 gallons left in the tank.

I dropped the tank, pulled the sender out and checked it. Fuel gauge pins to Full when grounded. When the sender is hooked up and in my hands it works as expected and reads Full when the float is all the way up, Half at halfway, and Empty at the lowest end. I immersed the float in a bowl of water and no air bubbles were seen at all.

Reassembled everything. This time I cut a hole in my trunk floor to access the sender. I don't want to drop the tank again if I can avoid it.

With everything reinstalled, put 5 gallons in and the gauge reads below empty....didn't move at all. I checked that I had good ground to the tank (I had installed a ground wire) and confirmed that it worked. Grounding the sender pin/sender wire causes the fuel gauge to pin to Full, so I don't think there is a problem with the wire.

My only guess is maybe the arm is not long enough? Doesn't make any sense to me. Works great out of the tank in my hands, and hardly works at all in the tank. I'm not sure where to go from here.

Can you compare the length and angle of the float arm when in the empty position to the original one?

Also the relative float position.

I would also use a multimeter and check the ground resistance between the case metal on the top of the sender and a good solid clean frame ground.

If that is abnormally more that zero (there is always a little), then you have a dirty ground path. Tank paint it the usualy culprit.

Just for reference make sure the gauge reads approx 73 ohms at the empty end and 10 ohms at the full end. With 5 gallons and the wire to guage disconnected I would think the reading with sender in the tank would be somewhere in the 55-60 ohm range.

In this photo the float arm is at the full position and total length of the arm from the bottom end of the stop is approx 7 3/4 inches. I am not guaranteeing the bend in the photo is exactly correct on this old beat up sender. The float top should almost be touching the tank top at full and float is almost laying on the bottom at empty.

I'll dig out the remains of my old sender. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. I can't find my multimeter, so I'm not sure I'll be able to check ohms. I just did the quick tests of grounding while the sender was installed. I connected the sender wire directly to the flat part of the sender and the gauge pegged, showing that I had sufficient ground path for the reading to work.

My guess is the arm is possibly too short, or needs to be bent in a different way. I'll compare tonight and report back.

I must have thrown my old sender away, so I don't have anything to compare it to. This new sender is a different design and is shorter.



Using my cut in half tank I was able to put the sender in it and observed that it sat 1/2" or so off the floor of the tank at full extension.



I bent the arm so it touches the bottom at full extension. Now it reads about 1/4 tank, which should be about right. There are 4-5 gallons in there now. But I think it will show full well before the tank is all the way full. I'll see when I fill it up tomorrow. The sender just doesn't have a long enough arm.