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Quote:

Thanks, Kevin. Once again, I appreciate the help with all the questions I had. I’ll get the one split tack welded when the car goes to the body shop in a few weeks.

My cousin will be at the house for a family Christmas on the 26th. He grew up seeing the car sit in Dad’s garage and never move. He’s really excited about riding in it before it goes to the shop for a few months.

I decided I needed to provide a little temporary floorboard reinforcement. Fortunately, this is the only area of the car with significant rust. To be fair, though, there really isn’t much rust in the floor board either….because there isn’t a floorboard left!

Problem solved! Is the body shop doing all the rust repair or are you going to do some?

-Kevin

The shop will do all that. I don’t have a few important things to do it myself….knowledge, tools, space, and don’t forget skill! 😜

I’ve already tackled more than I ever thought I would and I’m glad I did. It wouldn’t have happened without this site. But, I know my limits!

The floorboards are the best place to learn how to weld sheetmetal. Easy to cover ugly welds or warped metal with carpet!

See my 54 blog for evidence.

I made blanket ladders for my wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. They wouldn’t be complete without a blanket to go with them. The blankets, though are for me, my daughter, and my son. I gave Dad a blanket as well.

Nice Rack(s)!

Great fold on the blankets. Wonderful job.

A little while back, I replaced my battery cables with 00 and installed a battery disconnect switch. At the time, I installed the switch on the negative (hot) because the cable routing was much simpler.

Today, I re-did the battery cables and and now have the disconnect switch on the ground side which is much safer to be working around. I was right, though…the cable routing was MUCH more difficult. The 00 cables are hefty cables and having three of them get from the battery box area to the engine compartment was a challenge, especially to make sure the clutch pedal clears everything. I ended up rerouting my main wiring harness as well to make room. In the end, It turned out well and I feel much better about the disconnect on the ground side.

I’m pretty much done with everything I can do before the car goes into the shop for body, paint, and upholstery. Once I get it there, i will pull everything out of the dash to get all the trim panels sent for wood graining and I’ll pull the exhaust manifold to replace the heat riser valve and get the manifold ceramic coated.

I'm a believer in grommets and abrasion protection anywhere wiring passes through or over anything metal. Especially on an original style harness with it lack of individual fused circuits.

My wire between the battery and the Jag started has to pass over the driveline and then head up the firewall. So at one point where it passes over a frame area, I zip tied a piece of slit rubber hose around it. I do the same for fuel and brake lines as well.

As the British would say "Belt and Braces".

Since before we were married, I have referred to my wife as the “craft wizard”. She does all sorts of projects and they all come out amazing. She was a little behind schedule this year, so I got one Christmas gift yesterday….a new sweatshirt…

She started with a photo of my car, but I didn’t want a shirt with a photo, so she turned it into a graphic. Then, added the Packard logo and slogan.




Here is the picture she started with. On the shirt, you can even see the split in front fender. I love that you can clearly see that it is my car.