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Tuesday 22nd December 2009

Wade was already working on removing the main bearing caps when I arrived today. After they were off the crank was lifted out and then the block and crank were loaded into Wade's ute. Off to see Graham Wilkins for measuring of bores and crank journals. Found the bores to be somewhere in the vicinity of 0.090" oversize, looks like the pistons were about 0.075" over plus wear! Action here is to sleeve it back to standard with new pistons, pins, rings, etc. While the crankshaft was quite good on both the mains and big-ends and will clean up with a 0.10" grind. While there JohnL, the guy who made Wade's aluminium fuel tank for Old Blue and the Stainlees Steel muffler for the '34, came in to see Graham. Turns out John knew GordonD, an old friend of mine from years gone past, but it turned out Gordon died about 4 years ago which I was very sorry to hear. Gordon was a great bloke who helped me in my early days with Model A Fords, Hot Rods and Dragsters. In fact the first dragster Gordon built, was for himself, powered by a Model A engine with two huge sidedraft carburettors off a German armoured car engine and was pictured in Hot Rod Magazine back in about 1967 when about 5 US Top Fuel and Gas dragsters made a tour of Australia, included Tony Nancy in one of his Buick powered 22jr cars, Ron Colson in a blown small block Chevy, Bob Keith in a blown big block Chevy, George "Bushmaster" Schrieber in Ed Roth's Yellow Fang. Before that it was just local cars with very few imported US cars running the quarter mile here.

But enough of the nostalgia fest and back to Packards. Back at the workshop removal of the remaining engine components still on or in the engine commenced. Valves, springs, keepers, camshaft and lifters out, then head stud removal. Seeing this was relatively straight-forward this task was delegated to me and I managed to snap off only one stud in the removal process! Not to fear, Graham Wilkins can have the removal of the broken stud as part of his brief in the rebuilding process. But back to the valves, will replace all the valves as well as use new valve springs in the rebuild and k-liners used in the valve guides. Will also have hardened seats inserted and new cam bearings. After almost all was apart we sat down and Wade composed a list of the parts required which he'll order tonight. Then comes the hard part, paying for it all!

And a few things I missed mentioning yesterday. Wade returned John's '39 110 to him on Sunday and John was pleased and impressed with the performance now available! And yesterday morning Wade had picked up Big Red's crankshaft, flywheel and clutch from Parry's Engineering. Wade also picked up the rebuilt front shocks for Noel's '41 160 Club Coupe apparently they were completely shot, not something a refill of fluid would have cured!

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Sorry to hear your bores were so far out, but at least it is fixable with the sleeving. Be able to keep the original engine that way.

I was at the very first grand nationals many moons ago, and didn't realize the significance of it at the time. Should have paid more attention :)

Tuesday 29th December 2009

Not a very exciting day, well except for falling in the pool this morning! After that, and having to have a shower and drying out the contents of my wallet, it really was a dreary day. Why? Because I was cleaning parts. Cleaned some of the larger parts off the engine, the bellhousing, and the trans crossmember. Only other thing of note was that Harvey's '40 Willys re-pro grills arrived today, he'll be very happy.

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Mal, I knew you were old, but damn! Oh well, at least you're still younger than Phil!

Quote:

Hurrumph!!!

Point being, for those few of us that think Mal is a bit addicted to communication, that it may not be his fault, the historical display proving ancestral genes may be at work...Mal's having evolved into the internet age may not be his fault!

Wednesday 30th December 2009

More cleaning today, this time smaller parts, nuts/bolts, etc, but did start scraping down the trans and overdrive. Did find a broken valve spring and one of the upper star valve spring seats, well that's what I'm calling it. Hadn't noticed these in disassembly being that they were caked in gunk. And Harvey came over to pick up his new repro '40 Willys grill. Also lent Harvey the fuel pump heat shield off the '41 because he wants to fabricate a couple for the two '39's under his stewardship. Don't know how it'll match up because the '41 doesn't have a vacuum pump while the '39's do but at least he's got something to work with.

Quote:Gerd,

If there had been a snake in the pool I can assure you I would have been just like your lizard friend!

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What you're calling a star washer was used to prevent rotation of the valve spring and keeper assembly.

31st December 2009

New Years Eve and what am I doing? Why, still scraping and cleaning Packard parts! Continued on the seemingly never ending journey of parts cleaning, doing more nuts/bolts and the trans and OD. Before I started though I had a look at the '38 trans I picked up from John, he of the '39 110 engine transplant, some months back. Thought it might have a good trans mount to replace the mount on the '41 which has separated. It was not to be though, because the left side mount on the '38 trans was also separated while the right side mount is badly perished and separating too.

Quote:Dave,

Learning all the time! My Packard education continues.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

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Monday 4th January 2010

A new year, more Packard happenings, the workshop, sounds like a perfect recipe for a good time. But first, gave blood plasma, then it was off to the workshop where Wade had returned from his relaxing sojourn at Smiths Lake. The other thing that had arrived this morning was a parcel from Max, see pic's. Pretty good seeing that Wade had ordered the stuff for the engine re-build just before Christmas. Of course there's still a lot more to come like sleeves, pistons, rings, bearings, etc, etc but it's started.

First up helped Wade with Big Red's block and head, he was preparing for installing new welsh plugs in the head and block, 6 in each, and doesn't want any problems(read leaks). Then it was into more cleaning, but first dis-assembled the rods from the pistons, hadn't done this before and found even someone of my limited mechanical ability could do it! Of course re-assembling the new parts will be another ball game completely, but that I'll face some time in the future. Also cleaned up the main bearing caps and the cam followers as well as other little bits and pieces. And Wade came to the rescue with a valve spring anti-rotator off the shelf. As well he told me he'd already checked out the trans mounts on the trans from John so knew they were shot. But not to worry, I've been in email contact with Noel, who's currently enjoying some Texas hospitality courtesy of the Flacks(Mistress and Master), and he's pretty sure there are some trans mounts in the PACA "club stock" he's currently storing for the club. And had a nice surprise when I returned home from the workshop, there was an email from Annette with pic's of PeterL and his '38, which he's currently working on. Although I'm taking a bit of a liberty here, by posting a couple of them below, but I'm sure Peter won't object.

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