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I had another day at the shop today. I stripped the paint off the engine side of the steering column and found why it likely got painted. My best guess is the guy that sold the car to Dad was flipping it. There was a some rust on the steering column, so they likely “dressed it up” to sell. But, it really wasn’t that bad and after a good bit of polishing, I’m very happy with it. The interior portion looks great after polishing.

Here is a picture after stripping the paint, but before polishing.




Here is a picture after polishing. Again, I’m very happy with this.




I also got the inside of the firewall painted along with the clutch and brake pedals, stripped down the toe board, and fixed my VERY wobbly gas pedal studs. It’s going to be nice not having my gas pedal flopping two inches left and right. While I was at it, I also painted as much of the frame as I could get to around the transmission. Then, I started cutting some jute to replace some the insulation in the kick panels and at the top of the dash. I was a bit lucky to be able to get the old stuff out mostly intact to use as a pattern.










I also have been working on my horn button. The black around the Packard crest was completely worn away. I took two attempts with masking fluid to get it to where I’m happy with it. It’s not perfect, but it came out pretty nice. The wire, was in surprisingly good shape. The insulation is still very supple, but did have a couple very small nicks. It also was in need of some strain relief at the solder joint. I added a little strain relief with a couple short pieces of heat shrink tubing. I also bought a 10ft lengths of 1/4 in heat shrink tubing and used it the full length of the wire. That will make sure the couple of nicks won’t be an issue.

Here is how my horn button started.




Here is after painting.

I'm not sure if the heat shrink on this wire is good idea as it's a special wire that is very flexible, able to withstand the repeated turning of the wheel. The heat shink will make it far too stiff.

Definitely does not seem to be too stiff. It is still quite flexible. I did use 2:1, not 3:1 and I made sure and used heat shrink that does not have any adhesive. So, should I find that it is too stiff, the heat shrink is easily removable. That said, if there is and issue that required removing the heat shrink, I would just replace the wire since there are a few nicks in the insulation.

I spent part of the day at the shop again today. I got the floor boards and toe board coated with rust encapsulator. They should last another 88 years since there really wasn’t any rust except for the one panel that is being remade. I’ll coat that as well once the shop has it ready.



The new floor boards I made quite a while back fits great. I still need to drill the mounting holes so it can be screwed down.

I spent another full day at the shop. This time, the agenda was to get the engine bay detailed while the front clip is off. I painted the frame and touched up the green on the engine. I will go back on Wednesday to paint the underneath side of the frame.
















I also started cutting out pieces for insulation.

When i was doing my front frame I drilled a 1/8" weep hole in each of top of the spring pockets towards the edge. Ever car I've seen always has significant rust pitting in that concave depression as it's a bowl that holds water and never drains away.

The middle has the bumper but it's clear at the inside corner.

Not a bad idea. So far, the only “water” I’ve had pooled there has been on the passenger side when my water pump was leaking. The fan blows the coolant to that side.

Fortunately, those areas on my car are very solid and don’t have much pitting at all. Probably got lucky on that one.

I may put that on my to-do list.

So, what do you do when you’re bored and not feeling very motivated to do chores around the house? You start tinkering with all the little parts…

I started with tightening all the knobs on my window crank handles. Almost all of them had a bit of wobble. They should spin, but not wobble. So, I pressed them all on a bit more and have them how I want them.

Then, I disassembled my cigar lighter sockets so I could wire brush the bottom contact area that had a bit of corrosion. I found one had the phenolic piece broken, so I glued it back together. It should be fine since it’s all held in place by the housing as well. Then, I tested my plan to wire them to a small 12v negative ground battery (everything else will remain 6v positive ground). Mostly, I just needed to make sure the modern phone chargers fit the cigar lighter sockets correctly. They fit great and the cigar lighter sockets are ready to be reinstalled.