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

The indent spring and the 2 washers that are on either side of the spring were totally jammed up with crud. After flushing the tumbler with PD Blaster and Silicone spray repeatedly, I got some movement in the tumbler and finally was able to get it to release. Doesn't appear that anything is broken.
There were rivers of crud flowing down and onto the trunk lid. One of our volunteers kept wiping the lid to avoid paint stains.
We then applied pressure on the trunk lid where the slides are located. While spraying and rinsing the tumbler hole repeatedly, what looked like a solid mass of crud soon became 2 special flat washers and a spring. Not sure why the handle just spun before, but I think the flat washers weren't engaging into the mechanism.

For now, I chose to NOT reinstall the tumbler. While researching a solution, I looked at other late 30's-early 40's cars in our collection. Just about all of them have had the tumblers removed at some point prior to arriving at the museum. This problem isn't a new one - for sure.
We cleaned and sprayed each of the release sliders as well as the handle mechanism and all is good.

Interesting to note, the 1940 Packard 110 has a similar setup but is not nearly as beefy as the V12 setup. Each sliding latch on the V12 is housed in a 3" square tube with supports attached to the trunk lid.

I made a drawing for reassembly and took plenty of photos to add to our museum book (I call it our bible) that details each car and repairs and/or maintenance performed.

Bill