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

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Yes, Flackmaster is the Mastet Partsman there.

Kev, yes Mr. Unobtainium Esq.
Oh, and I overlooked the TXgoat post on re-installation advice. All received and understood. I will both ensure a level bed for the shocks when putting them back in AND do a re-torque after a 100 miles or so. Thanks for the input. Chris.

Chris - my rear shocks arrived to day from Apple Hydraulics. The look good. I’m assuming they’ll operate well, but that remains to be seen. I hope to get them on the car later today.

I posted some pictures on my blog showing how they arrived (gunmetal primer) and after painting. I used the rust encapsulator I had and brushed it on with care to keep it out of the threads of the end caps, etc…
Don’s rear shocks

Hey Don,
Thanks for the update. I've been off the site for a cople of days and just read your post now. Your shocks are very different looking that those on the '39. I expected they would look similar as the units listed for my car show as being 'for '35-'42' so I thought they were all pretty similar. Also surprised they came back in primer - would have thought they would have painted them black. Our postal strikers look like they are being ordered back to work pretty quickly up here, so I can at least get mine in transit. With the holidays I won't expect to see them until next year but the car is up on blocks for the winter anyway. Hope yours turn out to work as purported. I imagine if there is reasonable resistance to moving the arms and they don't leak, that would spell success, right?? Anyway, good luck with reassembly. Looks like your car is really coming along! Great going. Merry Christmas to you and yours, Don.
Chris.

Keep in mind that shocks I had done at Apple Hydraulics are my REAR shocks. My front shocks were in good shape already.

Ahh, that makes sense. Not quite sure how I didn't know that. My car has what I believe are factory 'tube shocks' in the rear, so I wasn't thinking 'rear' when dealing with lever shocks. Chris.

1939 was, as I recall, the first year of the tubular shocks but they were still mounted in such a way to require the 5th shock to dampen the side to side motion of the rear end. For 1940, the Packard engineers nailed it by angling the tubular shocks inward and forward at the tops which eliminated the need for the 5th shock!

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My '41 120 Club Coupe had the angled tubular rear shocks but ALSO a 5th shock on the rear sway bar.

I never saw a 5th shock on a 1941 but I am familiar only with junior models. The seniors, for some reason, didn’t always keep up with the technology.

EDIT: Looking at the service manual, the brilliant change was done only on the 110 for some reason.

That's interesting Don & Mal - I was completely unfamiliar with the '5th shock' concept. Like I say, I am pretty sure my car has factory tube shocks on the back (junior car) but there are only 2?? I have crawled around underneath it for hours doing various tasks and would have definitely noticed a 5th shock. Now I'm wondering if it is missing and needs to be addressed. Can you be specific about where it should be located?? I'm thinking there may be attachment points that I never noticed and I could/should get an appropriate size shock and install it. Also, as I address the front shocks, getting them rebuilt, a previous owner had welded thick steel 'L'-brackets to the frame with pieces of angle steel bolted to the ends of the control arms and installed standard tube shocks there. (see pic) They seemed to work well enough - good ride dampening and no noticeable steering or handling issues; I was thinking when I reinstalled the lever shocks, I would just leave them in place, kind of a 'belt and suspenders' approach. Anybody have and opinion on this?? Removing them would involve cutting and grinding off the brackets and I thought, well, you know, two is better than one! Chris.

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