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Tuesday 20th October 2009

Couple of hours at the workshop this morning. Continued on from yesterday at the back of John's engine by installing the clutch fork arm, the pressure and clutch plates, the clutch throw-out bearing, the transmission, reconnecting the spring to the throw-out bearing, the bottom bell-housing cover and topped off with a new boot for the clutch fork.

Then turned to the front of the engine and "added" a timing mark pointer for the front pulley/balancer. The '39 110 doesn't come equipped with this feature instead relying on the mechanic to view the timing marks on the front of the flywheel through the hole below the starter motor! Must have been some kind of masochist who designed that feature and some sort of contortionist to use it! Wade used one off a 120 which fitted perfectly and then using the timing marks on the flywheel, marks were inscribed on the pulley for #1 TDC and 7 degrees before and after #1 TDC. Wade's final touch was to paint the marks and also the pointer tip white for ease in using a timing light later. And for a bloke, whose hands at times shake like he's got some sort of palsy, he had a deft touch with the paintbrush for the markings required!

Lastly the intake/exhaust manifold assembly was removed from the engine. Yesterday a new hot box gasket was installed between the intake and exhaust manifolds, tightened up and left overnight. There was another check tightening on the three bolts holding it together this morning followed by a discussion with John(the mechanic in the workshop, not the car owner) about whether to have the engine manifold surfaces skimmed. Although it looks pretty good, and checking with a straight edge shows it to be about dead level, Wade after his experiences recently with Old Blue didn't want to take the risk. So we walked the manifold to the machine shop up the road and Perry said it should be ready this afternoon.

The only other thing is that I remembered to ask Wade about removing the '34's radiator. This question came from Terry(PackardInfo member, Traumjaegercat) in the Chatroom last night. Terry, you can remove the grill shell, shutters and radiator as a unit from the chassis or you can remove the grill shell then the shutters(6 bolts hold the assembly on as well as removing the rods for the shutterstat), then 2 bolts hold the bottom of the radiator frame to the front cross-member. There are some pic's here from today which may help.

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Hi Mal and Wade, I would urge that you etch or carefully strike the marks onto the harmonic balancer as the paint has a habit of removing itself after a while. best regards and keep up the good work. Peter T

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Peter,

When I said inscribed I really should have said scribed. The white paint was used to fill the scribed lines for visibility purposes.

Sorry Mal, My misunderstanding. Peter

Wednesday 21st October 2009

After spending a delightful morning with the granddaughters, arrived at the workshop to find Peter L from the Central Coast there. Peter was going through Wade's old 120 rods to find some better than the ones he has for the 120 engine he's building. He's also in the middle of trying to track down a water leak in the engine presently in his '38, but without luck so far.

Wade also showed me the intake/exhaust manifold back from surfacing which he'd painted with black manifold paint yesterday afternoon(car is a driver). Then while Wade was helping Peter I was put to work finish cleaning, then stringing up a load of mostly engine parts for the 110 for painting. After Peter left I got stuck into the painting while Wade was making gaskets for the window winders for the '34 and then re-assembling the winders. Wade had had new gears cut for the winders because the originals were missing, sometimes missing many, teeth.

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Peter,

No need to be sorry, I should be clearer with my explanation in the first place.

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Hi Mal! Like always I enjoy your write up. The technical pictorial records you provide is also of immeasureable value. Someday someone is going to need to see how a ring gear is shrinked onto the flywheel.
How is the terrible fires in Sydney? Hope you guys are well. We are also heading for a dry El Nino season here in SA.

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Barrie,

Fires are not a problem for Sydney....yet! Current problem fires are in north Queensland, probably 1,500/2,000 miles away. We're well, with frustrations for Wade the main drama as different things crop up. Talking of El Nino, it was 35C in Sydney yesterday and it's still a month and a half away from the "official" start of summer!

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Late start at the workshop this morning, because Wade was dropping Gina at the airport first, or so I thought. Wade was also taking the opportunity to drop off the front shocks from the 110 to Tony "Shocks", who lives out that way, so he can rebuild them. Only trouble was, there was little to no traffic on the way to the airport so, arrived early to be greeted by Tony in his pyjamas! Wade also picked up the windscreen and other glass for the '34 on his way back having had a call from Ralph yesterday to say they were all ready. They would have been ready sooner but the quarter window glass had been cut incorrectly first time round.

Because I didn't think Wade would be in until mid-morning that's when I arrived. Wade was already in residence and after taking down all the wired up parts painted yesterday we started on putting some of the pieces back on the 110's engine. Including intake/exhaust manifolds, fuel pump, generator mounting and tensioning brackets(loosely for now), distributor bracket(also loosely) and rebuilt water pump. Wade also put the freshly painted plate and linkage lever on the new shutter stat for the 110. Then realised he could also have dropped off the 110's radiator this morning at JJ Smith's which is also out the airport way!

Before we started on all that John, the 110's owner, called in to see what progress was being made, get filled in on what was happening and what unforeseen things now needed attention or rebuilding. Later on Harvey also called in to pick up something from Wade and I was able to pass on to Harvey some Willys info I'd printed out from the internet that he rang me about last night. If anyone out there has a good '41 Willys trans, or NOS, or NORS parts for one please let me know because Harvey is after one/some. Harvey is also after an accelerator pedal for the '39 120 he's working on for his boss because the ball mountings on it's reverse are all broken. Another Packard visitor was Kevin, former owner of the '35 Wade was working on, looking for John(the mechanic at the workshop) about the progress, or lack of it, being made on his V12 Daimler.

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Friday 23rd October 2009

Most of the day was spent entertaining the granddaughters, what a pleasureable way to while away the time. But I did have time to drop the running boards back to Peter, who's going to respray them after filling the holes as per Keegans advice below, also gave Peter an edited version of Keegans advice. Pic is of the boards with masking tape covering the holes not required to be filled with the masking tape only indicative to Peter where not to spray. Should get them back next week.

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Monday 26th October 2009

After donating blood plasma this morning arrived at the workshop where Wade was almost ready for a delivery/pickup run. He could have done this without me but phoned last night, to find out what time I'd be there, so he could take me along for the ride. Wade had loaded up the tray of the ute with John's 110 radiator, Big Red's flywheel, pressure plate, harmonic balancer, con-rods and gudgeon(piston) pins, new big-end bearings and new pistons. What hadn't been loaded was the crankshaft, which took both of us to lift in.

Then we were off, first stop JJ Smiths for the 110 radiator to be checked, repaired, tested, etc. Dave in examining it said the cap on it wasn't right, although it is a pressurised system, it was a long neck type, too long for the filler it caps! Next was LW Parry Engineeringlwparry.com.au/ for Big Red's new gudgeon pins to be pitted to the con-rods and the new big-end bearings to be bored to fit the crankshaft, and the crank, flywheel, pressure plate, rods and gudgeon pins will also be balanced. Then on to Lee Brothers for various nuts, bolts, washers for the projects in hand. That was followed by Graham Wilkins' where we dropped off the new pistons, Graham already has the block and head. Then on to ABC Bearings where Wade picked up a pair of wheels which had been on order for the engine crane. Also took the opportunity to photograph a roller cam follower of the type Wade is using in Big Red in lieu of unobtainable originals. Didn't have a "before" picture for the article that Wade's going to pen about what was done to adapt them to a Super 8 engine(Jim and others, Wade hasn't forgotten!). But I think we're back to square one on the pic, because all the pics I took are blurry! Sorry Wade. Last stop was Pirtek, a hydraulics business, where Wade was seeking to replace the oil cooler in Big Red because it's leaking with some other solution. Not to be though, the guy he needed to see wasn't there so that'll be for another day.

However, before picking up the running back at the workshop, a little background to some of todays stops. Wade had been waiting for some time for the parts he ordered from Max's to arrive. They did so on Friday, finally. They would, could, should have been here earlier. But because the value of the parts exceeded the "magic" cutoff mark, Australian Customs held them in their unmistakable bureaucratic grip and Wade was put through the hoops in order to gain their release not to mention enriching the governments coffers in the process. Parts received were a set of pistons and pins for Big Red. And there's a story just about the pistons themselves. When Wade rang JD at Max's he was told they were out of stock for 0.060" over pistons and it could be some months before more were available. However, there was a special ordered set which the customer now didn't want but they were 0.063" over. No problems though, the bores are going to be honed anyway, they'll just be honed sufficiently to take the extra oversize involved. The other interesting matter concerns the big-end bearings. These are now available, after being in short or non supply for some time, but they are all the one size! Because of this they then have to be bored to suit the size big-end journals on the crank being used whether they are std, 0.010". 0.020", etc, etc.

At the workshop while I scraped the '39's front crossmember and frame rails of years of accumulated grease and dirt Wade was working on the '39's distributor. On Friday he'd discovered the vacuum advance wasn't connected inside the distributor, it was missing it's actuating arm. New arm fabricated Wade also found because the advance wasn't connected the plate was "floating" around. And today Wade replaced the distributors bushes. Had quite a struggle removing the pins holding the shaft in place but once this was overcome, with the new bushes inserted, the distributor now turns and functions as it should.

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