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I will start a blog but bing as I dislike writting reports goes back to work before I retired. Back to the project always liked the 57 Packards as a older couple near where I grew up had a black 57 packard and the older lady who drove it had a heavy foot. Back then I was a13 year old car nut. Being the son and uncle of a Studebaker family I liked the looks of those cars. Aftyer retiring found this 57 Packard about nine miles from home it is a two owner car me being the third owner the first and second owner lived a few houses apart. Recived all the original paper work with the car when I bought it.
The second owner had a lot of NOS parts which I recieved with the car.
Had not been run in a few years and has 30000 orignal miles. After hauling it home with help of my son and brothers decided to fix it up as it had oil leaks no doubt to its old age it shares the results of time as I do.

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Great news!
Can't wait for more pictures!

Al,

Great to see you've now got a Blog up and running. Looking forward to more pic's and commentary about your work on the '57.

Made some progress today my brothers came over and help install engine picture of each working getting clean engine in place also before pic to show slight increase in the cleanliness

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Wow what a difference! Good work.

i can't believe you did all that in 12 days.....but then again you did say you were retired.....so you do have all day. LOL!

was that piece originally blue like that....last pic.

Key word here is retired not done in twelve days work on it as I felt like it as there are many parts to this plan. Including replacing front fenders which have some rust have located NOS replacements. After fenders off removed engine and trans replaced all gaskets and seals in engine cleaned and detailed it. Sent power brake unit out to be rebuilt by Ed Strain like dealing with them fast turn around and nice looking finished product. Also had transmission checked and rebuilt. Replaced all motor and trans mounts hoses and trans cooler lines also the radiator was checked out by local shop. Waiting for supercharger to come back but not needed at this time.
The blue thing is the power steering assembly it was just a natural casting and it was ugly looking with battery acid stains and brake fluid all over it so I painted it blue as I had that paint. The unit will not be seen when all the parts are assembled should have made it cast iron color may change it not sure about that.
Randy Berger convinced me to use the original style hose clamps even though I do not care for them.
My feeling is when you are retired the only time that counts is what you have left no one knows that amount.
The car a thing to keep me occupied and happy not a dead line deal been there done that but now I set the time to work time to not work or do other things

Excellent work!
You are right.. time is the only real money that you have..spend it wisely.

A little progress made as the first start up was taken care of this morning when my brother came over. Nice to have extra set of hands and eyes when first start up to look for problems. Only one small leak on transmission line but that should be easily fixed.
Started to install fenders and front grill work. The bad thing about that is that all the work on the engine detailing is now not easily seen.
If you looked at latest pictures the new color of steering box can be seen. Looks better than the blue it was before.
Waiting for the supercharger to come back. Will not make much progress for a few days with yard work and 4th of July holiday. Other things do have to be taken care of as this is not to be a rush job but busy work for me.

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Will add a little here on progress. All the fenders have been replaced fronts were easy they bolt on . Rears a little more work as they are welded. I cut the lower section of both rear fenders and the NOs rears I had and installed them where the trim seam is covered by wide moulding. Had my brother weld them in place. All four fenders will now be NOS.
The car was taken to body shop to be taken care of by a professional as that is not even close to my area of knowledge or skill. The day we took it to body shop was quite wet.
Also worked on dash pad, door panels and painted the Steering wheel.

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