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Not much knowledge of 54 and Clipper seals rtc. always seem to be different part numbers. I hope you are satisfied with the floor pans. I thought that all four-door products used the same floor pans??

The floorpans are still in route to me, but once I get them i should be able to tell really quickly if they are good or the are crap.

I hope they will work, but I have heard mix results with other aftermarket Packard replacement sheet metal.

I may have to ask Albert Skinner about the gaskets for the '54. Alot of stuff is 1 year only on that series, and he must have had to find a replacement seals for his own fleet of '54s by now.

Kev--take those new wheel cylinders apart and clean all of the anticorrosion goo off of the parts inside. Use lacquer thinner on the metal parts, denatured alcohol on the rubber parts. I like to hit the raw wheel cylinder casings with a rattle can of gray or silver paint(or black if thats all that's handy), masking off the inner bore. Put the cylinders back together by coating all of the parts with the fluid that you intend to run the system on--dot 5,4,3 whatever.

Sage advice John, I will do that.

Randy, I believe you are correct about the floor pans.

They did arrive here at my office today. They are labeled 51-56 Packard (Made in U.S.A.).

While I have not yet held them up to my existing floor pans, they are different. I think it's a generic design the will fit any of the 51-56 Packards/Clippers, but they are not a reproduction of the factory stampings. They are a simplier design. Maybe this was done to make them more generic across any differences in the 51-56 Series/Models.

They may take a little working to get them to fit, but I think the overall bends and shape is about right.

I wont be able to tell until I try to lay them onto the exisitng pans.

Worst come to worst, they will make a good basis for patch panels.

My wifey was feeling generous yesterday, and she bought me four Gladiator Wall Cabinets to help control the mess that is occurring in the garage. As I have been buying more and more tools and supplies to work on the car, I have been quickly running out of places to put them. Couple that with all of the parts removed from the car, and my two car garage is starting to look like something out of Sanford and Son.

These will help to get stuff up off the ground, and more importantly off my workbench. Now all I need is a couple of tall cabinets and I will be all set. I am hoping to finally get back to finishing off the garage remodel. All I need to do is go buy about 20 sheets of plywood for the unfinished walls. Buying is no problem, finding someone with a truck to pick them up for me has been a challenge.

Well while not exactly related to working on my Packard, it will help in the long run. I think the reason my Packard project has moved along so slow, is that I have been sharing the money and time between actual work on the car, and getting the garage, tools, and supplies bought and sorted out so can work more effectively on the car.

I want to make some real progress on the garage and the car this winter while it's cool. As summer really limits the amount of time I can spend in the garage with the heat. Perhaps I will just break down and buy a big A/C unit for the garage before next summer. I know that would really help out.

Well I spent some time in the garage today and finished the rough in on the electrical for the remaining unfinished walls. I would have had the electrical done today, but I ran out of outlets, and I didnt feel like dealing with Lowes today. I could swear that I had another contract pack of outlets.

I also spend a little time removing 50 years worth of various nails, screws, hooks, and other fasteners that previous home owners had hanging off the wall studs. This was needed to get the studs prepped for the plywood covering.

Hopefully I am at the tail end of the garage remodel, and I can actual get back to work on the car. I still need to finish scraping the gunk of the front suspension and steering. Then I can get the front frame clip painted, and start putting everything back together. I am getting real tired of tripping over all the parts that are off the car at this point.

I think the only thing left between getting the motor running is the new oil and vaccuum lines I need to bend. I will just run the motor off of a bottle for now until I can get the fuel tank dropped. I am sure it will need to be boiled out if it looks anything like the inside of the fuel pump did. Plus the fact the car was found missing it's gas cap and the fuel door was sprung open I am sure didnt help it.

The front drum backing plates came out very nice. A heard back from Albert and he knows of no replacement gaskets for the ones I needed, so he suggested just making my own gaskets with some gasket sheet and using a little hi-temp gasket sealer. Since the gasket in question is just really a square with a hole in the middle of it, it should be easy to make. The gasket just help to seals the spindle shield and prevent any excess bearing grease form coming in contact with the brake shoes or drum surface.

Well I finally had enough light in the garage this morning to finish the electrical. It had been to dark when I got home from work to see what the heck I was doing out there with the main garage breaker off.

So here is where the garage is today. Currently it a complete disorganized mess due to me moving stuff around to run the electrical and prepping for the plywood sheathing. The cabinents are currently on the wall, but they will come down when I go to install the plywood. The cabinents sit on a track system, so they can be pulled off the wall or moved without tool in about 30 seconds (if they are empty). I put them up on the wall temporarily for two reasons. Planning, so I could see of they would fit, and because I had no where else to store them right now.

Excuse the mess but here are the current pics. You can see the new electrical in the walls (yellow romex), and the storage lofts that I built last year. Hopefully by the next time I post pictures the walls will be finished and the garage will be in a more organised state.

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I mananged to pick up the plywood yesterday. I acutally got 15 sheets of 1/4" luan. So it has a very smooth finished surface. Once primed and painted, it should look very good.

Currently I have 2/3rds of the garage done. I laid the sheets horizontally along the wall. This makes the long seam sit at '56 (48" tall wide sheet, plus 8" for the concrete footings). The Gladiator Gear Track will over-lap the seam hiding it. Hanging the sheets this way also allowed me to hang the luan with the fewest number of cuts, and use the most number of full sheets.

I have about 1/2 of one way to finsh, plus the underside of the lofts. The rest are going to require me to cut the sheets lenghtwise. So those will have to wait till tomorrow. Try to wrestle 4x8 sheets of 1/4 ply onto the table saw with the winds blowing outside by yourself is not a fun thing.

Once all the ply is up, the I need to do a little trim work with 1/4 round moulding and it should be ready for paint. Hopefully I will have all the plywood complete by the end of tomorrow. I'm done for the rest of today, as I'm bushed.

Here is a pic of one of the finished corners near my workbench. None of the mouldings of Gear Track have been installed yet. Excuse the mess as everything had to be pulled away from the walls.