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Quote:

Dave,

Thanks for your suggestion I will be following this up although my first thought was I'd have no chance of finding one especially here in Oz. But on looking on eBay find, that at the moment out of the 86 on offer, there are 2 closely matching the year range like yours. I have already put the question to the sellers about shipping to down under.

Saturday 29th December

Opened the package of parts from Kanters to check what was sent and received. However as my technical ability and parts recognition skills are still not fully proficient I am unsure if it's all there as ordered.

Rang Wade and he agreed we will check them on Wednesday 2nd January when he returns. We will also take out the wiring harness, tag it, and send to Melbourne for copying.

Also rang Noel about the shocks, he hadn't heard about this from Peter but was very agreeable to playing his part in the deal. Noel also gave me 2 more leads to locally available used shocks so there are other avenues now available if required.

Wednesday 2nd January 2008

Took the boxful of rebuild parts down to the workshop. Wade wasn't there, being at the dentist again having his teeth fixed many from old football injuries from years ago.

Started by doing the Metal Ready step for the POR-15 paint process for:

Brake drums - front and rear
Backing Plates - front only, rears are still on the '41
Lower Front Control Arms
Inner fender panels - both sides W/- 2 per side
Small miscellaneous parts

During the course of doing this Wade arrived and while I continued with the metal ready he jacked the rear of the '41 up higher and raised the jack stands to suit. This enabled him to get under and start removing the wiring harness starting from the taillights and working forward.

By the time I'd finished with the metal ready process Wade had removed the rear part of the harness along the frame and the taillight harness. I was then put to work writing up tags to identify the wire ends and attaching these as required. Then as I finished that Wade had struck a problem with removing the main harness from the base of the firewall. I gave what assistance and suggestions I could but it was Wade who discovered the culprit to be the wires attached to the headlight dipper switch. At this point I was able to peel back the carpet and unscrew the switch from the floor, demonstrating some mechanical aptitude at least but more, to give Wade a bit of a break!

Work on the harnesses removal then continued with me sitting on a mechanics wheeled stool under the drivers front fender while Wade perched on a plastic milk crate and the running board operated from above. There was some interchanging of roles when Wade couldn't see or reach a screw or nut easily. I was also writing up tags and tying them to the various ends of decaying or insulationless wires as the case may be. All went well in and around the engine bay with most wiring removed or released and tagged to the point that we, or more rightly Wade, started under the dash.

The work under the dash necessitated removal of the steering wheel as even Wades 140lb frame, as opposed to my not so svelte 230lbs, found the going tough lying on his back with tools digging into his shoulders from where he thought he'd laid them out for easy access but which turned instead into instruments of torture! The removal of the radio early in the piece was with thoughts that this would allow easier access to the back of the instrument panel. But this was not the case. With limited access and vision in that situation the lower screws were easily removed but Wade couldn't determine where any upper instrument panel retaining nuts/screws were. For a fair while the situation was surveyed, wrestled with and cursed at. While at times I perused the manuals I had but these did not give even a hint as to how the instrument panel was released from it's mountings.

Finally I told Wade we'd stop at that juncture and go look at the headlight harnesses and come back to the instrument panel later or tomorrow. My other advice to Wade was I'd post a question about '41 instrument panel removal on this forum, for which so far I've had 2 replies. One from Eric, not very helpful, but he told me later that without him it would get very boring. And one from BigKev, with much more constructive advice, which will be put to the test tomorrow.

I also posted the same question on the AACA Packard forum, I'm trying to cast as broad a net I can. With one reply there from Peter Packard, my Aussie shock absorber saviour, which will also be explored tomorrow.

Removal of the headlight harnesses was pretty straightforward with Wade leaving it to me to do the spanner/screw turning. Did discover though that one of the headlight buckets had more rust than first thought together with the sealed beam retaining hemisphere. So I'll be after good used or NOS of these as well!

At this point I went back to the Metal Ready and completed this step under the drivers side fender and frame rails. While I was doing that Wade was cleaning up some of the screws and fittings on the wirebrush wheel on the bench grinder.

After this I cleaned up and then sat down with Wade and discussed the plan of attack for tomorrow. This will be dependent on the replies we've received from both forums and I might hazard a guess also Wades mechanical nous and skills. So any thoughts here or in the Pre-War forum request or the AACA forum request will be greatly appreciated. Especially if it cracks the code, so to speak.

While all the above was going on Wade received a couple of phone calls. One from Barry our Packard Clubs President and one from Noel. Noel rang about his trip to Canberra this week during which he is picking up the front shocks from Peter that he's giving me. And also because Wade has Kevin's '34 Sedan in the workshop and on which he's rebulding the motor but waiting for bearings to come from the US so he can complete it. The connection with Noel for the '34 is that it has a carbie on it that was loaned by Peter because the carbie on it was damaged while in another workshop and Noel arranged it's loan. Noel is taking the opportunity to return the carbie to Peter while he's going there and will come round tomorrow to pick it up.

Now - I was going to put in a comment here about the nut by nut, bolt by bolt nature of some of my posts and if you, the readers, would like a shorter sanitized story. But I then thought, no it's my Project Blog and although it's often long winded I do it first to document the work done on the '41 and also to please me and my ego. So, I'll leave it as is and then it'll be up to you, dear readers, to skip or skim over the more detailed descriptions reported on if you don't require the detail.

The proof is in the details and that's what will help some other bloke. I think I'd fit right in down under(lol). I enjoy reading the detailed how-to and I'm sure most DIYers would also.

Thursday 3rd January 2008

The replies from the posts on this and the AACA forum had a general theme of remove the moulding around the windshield for fasteners which may be holding the instrument panel in place. So Wade tried that but, alas poor Yorick, no sign of fasteners!

While Wade was doing that I removed the tie rod ends, necessitating some brute force with hammers, judiciously applied of course, to break the tie rod ends free. The part necessitating brute force was overseen by Wade to ensure I didn't damage anything, including me I think! Then cleaned up the steering knuckle arms.

Wade again adopted his upside down position under the dash looking for any fastener, screw, nut or whatever, naturally without success. While Wade was doing that, I was again under the front end this time scraping off 66 years of accumulated gloop, but comprised mainly of some fine Idaho dirt. I expect to be putting in a crop of potatoes soon at the rate I'm extracting it from underneath the '41!

While doing this Wade received a call from my wife who he told "Oh I think he's lying around here somewhere". And then she tells me our daughter and granddaughter are coming over. Although the call of a Packard is strong that of family is even stronger. After cleaning up, left about midday.

I might have mentioned earlier that Harvey, a member of the Packard Club, was after a pair of '41 Willys axle shafts for his '40 Willys project and I'd found a pair for him. The axles arrived while the family was there and almost caused my wife an injury. She greeted the deliveryman and almost collapsed under the weight of the package when he handed it to her! Harvey gets his axles tomorrow afternoon after I pickup my Mum & Dad from the airport at the end of their trip.

Will be at the workshop in the morning though. And when I left today Wade was going to see if he could extract the aero-drive part of the wiring harness so I'll see how that went.

G'day Mal, Very glad to read details of you progress with the 41 -120. For the removal of the tie rod ends I have found the wedge fork type available at your local parts supplier (supa-cheap, Autopro, etc) to be most effective. You have a 50% chance of tearing the old boot but it is a breeze to use and very effective. They cost about $A15 and they are available in a large or small size. I purchased both sizes as the come very much in handy to separate the steering arm and any other taper lock fittings on vehicles. I shall show Noel when he gets here. I am surprised that no one has a non fitted 41 instrument cluster to eyeball where the attachment points are. Best regards Peter Toet

Friday 4th January 2008

Arrived at the workshop relatively early for me, about 9:00am. After discussing things with Wade it was decided to allow some more time for instrument panel removal advice and so I proceeded to remove the inner tie rod ends. These appear to be new but don't appear to have been greased, only hope they are that new and with relatively little use that they are OK. This time the manual persuasion, although required, was relatively mild in relation to the removal of the outers.

At this point Harvey arrived as I'd changed the '41 Willys rear axle delivery place and time because he is going up the coast today. Harvey then proceeded to look over the '41 accompanied by many of his extensive repertoire of Packard and other stories so it was probably an hour before he inspected the axles, settled up and proceeded on his way. A very nice and thoroughly unexpected touch was a bottle of Scotch Whiskey apparently in appreciation of my efforts. I didn't have the heart to tell Harvey I'm not a great Scotch drinker but this could soon change, especially if I can keep it hidden from my youngest son!

After Harvey's departure it was back under and attempting to remove the centre pivot arm and pin. The bolt through the centre of the fitting proved very stubborn to move and only after a long bar was used did it turn at all but refused to come out. It's been liberally doused with penetrating spray and will be addressed again on Monday.

I should also mention that Noel called in yesterday after I'd left and also inspected the '41. He was the guy I first told about the car and to my surprise he told me he also had a '41 Coupe but his was a 160! But his requires a full restoration. '41 Packards are not very common in Oz, because our start in WW2 in 1939 stopped virtually all car imports except those deemed war related. Anyway, Noel picked up the '34 carbie and hopefully soon we will have some rebuildable shocks ex Peter Packard.

Monday 7th January 2008

After donating blood arrived at the workshop about 11:00am and with Wade literally doing all the upside down and intricate under and behind dash work we removed the dash, glove box and instrument cluster, along the way tagging wires.

Finished after 4:00pm, but this was broken earlier in the piece by the arrival of my brother Lindsay who had brought his cerebral palsy handicapped son David to see the '41. Their arrival was closely followed by that of Noel delivering the '39 front shocks he'd picked up from Peter in Canberra last week. So some time was lost in Packard and other chat together with photos of the Packards with and without David in shot.

I won't go into a detailed account of the dash and instrument panel removal just saying its a piece by piece effort all the way and there appear to be no useful short-cuts available. It's just a slog to find, identify, reach, remove and tag every wire there.

At this point the remaining part of the harness requiring removal is the section for the aero-drive under the car. This section will be removed and tagged tomorrow. Then its off to the harness maker, together with copies of the wiring diagrams I have for the '41, and hopefully a new harness will be ready about the end of January.

Also, yesterday I bought a new cheapie digital camera to replace the one I lost/misplaced a couple of weeks ago. So shortly there will be some pic's to accompany the commentary.

Mal,

Congrats on getting the dash off! Wow, sounds like a heck of a task.

Cheers,

Tom

Tuesday 7th January 2008

Supposed to get to the workshop at 9:00am but I promised the editor of the Packard Club here that I'd write Part 3 of my story. This I'm cobbling together from my posts here together with massive editing and also changes back to Aussie car terminology. So got caught up doing that, which I hope to finish tonight, and ended up getting there about 10:00am.

Wade was already at work checking the tagging of wires in the engine bay and found a couple I'd mis-identified. He was also checking the relay and regulator terminals to properly identify them and then these were tagged. Next we removed the harness from the engine bay back through the firewall into the '41's interior. Because the wires had both fittings and now tags on them as we came to the various ends these were pushed, pulled and squeezed through very carefully with Wade inside pulling and sorting and me in the engine bay feeding, pushing and cajoling wires through the firewall. At the end of all this took a pic of Wade holding up the magnificent specimen we bagged.

What then remained was the aero-drive and electromatic clutch wiring to be removed. Because the electromatic clutch has been disconnected and most of the mechanism is missing I am not going to resurrect this - it may be done in the future if I can round up the requisite parts. So Wade has removed the circuitry for it and it will be put aside for future reference. That left the aero-drive wiring which Wade tackled himself requiring minor assistance on my part at one point only and also from John, one of the blokes who also has space in this large workshop, and I left Wade this afternoon trying to get to the top of the aero-drive throught the plate in the cabin floor (hope he has it off by tomorrow). At this point I'm putting out a call for a copy of a wiring diagram for the '41 120 aero-drive plus notes/explanations - my books don't have these!


In case you think I was sitting on my hands while Wade was doing all this, then think again. I was applying POR-15 to the parts I'd Marine Cleaned and Metal Readied in the last week or so. Amounting to the Inner Fender Panels, Lower Torque Arms, Front Backing Plates and Front and Rear Brake Drums plus about 1/2 the underside of the drivers side front fender. Suffice to say I'm no Michelangelo and a goodly portion of paint ended up on me some of which I removed by use of a pot scourer, hurts even now to talk about it!