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Thursday 5th August 2010

Arrived at the workshop to find Wade was around helping George. To pass the time until Wade's return, I did a little workshop housekeeping cleaning the areas around the cabinet blaster, wire and linishing wheels and Wades metal bench. Then while cooling my heels, funny because I was actually outside soaking up the winter sun, John said hop in and gave me a lift around to Georges new workshop while he went on to pick up some parts from Brookers Brakes. A little while later Wade received a call from John to say there was a guy back at his workshop waiting for him. Back to Wade's workshop where we met Neville a friend of Barry Smith from Tamworth. Neville delivered 1) A Super8/Twelve pressure plate Wade had sent late last week that Barry now didn't require as he was able to source a NOS pressure plate from a PACA guy in Melbourne, 2) Big Red's distributor that Wade had sent up a little while ago to be checked and set-up as required, and 3) A battery powered large mantle bakelite radio for which Wade has fabricated a battery pack using modern batteries which he needs to "tune" to the voltages required, 90V & 1.5V. Then back to George and another phone call, this from Wendy who was bringing "Emily" over for her tune-up, mechanical inspection and check and some other listed matters.

Returning to the workshop, all that Wade could do at Georges being done, the girls arrival was awaited. While waiting, the painted bumper mount step plate was given a haircut. A haircut? Yes, it is brass and was painted black all over. To accentuate the checked pattern upper surface of the step plate it was put on the linisher and the paint removed leaving black paint in the channels of the grid and a shiny brass surface on the square checks. The brass should age to give a nice patina given a little time. About this time Wade received another call from Wendy, she was sort of lost. How do you get sort of lost? Well she was in the vicinity but couldn't find the workshop because it's at the end of a long driveway behind a factory making bathroom vanity tops. A little later, following some over the phone directions, and there was Emily coming down the drive with Wendy at the wheel. After Wendy and her Mum left, who followed over to take Wendy home once Emily was delivered, work commenced on Emily.

Before doing anything though, Emily was taken for a test drive. Drives pretty well, she was restored about 15 years ago and gets along nicely. However stopping is another matter! In the course of the drive a truck came out from the left and Wade hit the brakes pretty hard although there was never any danger of a collision just an unexpected situation. In doing so Emily demonstrated very unladylike manners pulling heavily to the right. The braking test was therefore conducted out of sequence and the test run continued, with the rest of the test drive checking out OK. Back at the workshop a hand on each of the road wheels revealed Front right - Hot, Rear right - Warm, Rear left - Warmish and Front left - Stone cold! Some brake work is therefore required hopefully, at the minimum, just an adjustment but will be dependent on a drum off inspection.

Then first up? The step plate of course. The step plate mounts by means of the left outer bumper bolt to the inside of the bumper bracket but there was a problem. The bumper bolt was already being used to mount the left side blinker. The blinker was on a right angled bracket with a hollow post elevating the blinker itself. What to do? Why do a swapsie, mounting both sides' blinkers on the inner bumper iron bolts instead of the outside bumper iron bolts. Additionally the right side outer bumper bolt was swapped for the left side one because the right side one was a little longer and because of the thick bracket for the step plate every fraction of an inch counted. Another snag encountered was that the tops of the bumper over-riders prevented the blinkers from being mounted, but not by much. Solving this meant Mal and a file elongating the bumper mounting holes in the right angled brackets, and it worked.

That done, next? Mounting a pair of side mirrors Wade had picked up for the job a couple of weeks ago, the last ones in stock. First the right(drivers) side, a rough approximation of where it would probably go which turned out to be pretty accurate, then mounted but not tightened up. Next Wade into the driver's seat while I up, downed, in and outed the accessory. Worked out well with good vision to see car's in the outside lane for merging and overtaking or for parking. Then the left, passengers side, mounted easily and tightened up.

What else? This wasn't on the list but I noticed when the driver side door was closed the licence plate rattled. Wade had a look and told me this was a typical '37 problem. Reason being the stanchion rising from the left taillight is pot metal and with the licence plate hanging out there in the breeze it often gets snagged by people, on clothing or other objects and ends up cracking or breaking. In Emily's instance the stanchion was down to just a stump and removing it from Emily revealed what was left had been repaired by using a ground down nut! The ground down nut didn't fit too snugly so a little more grinding was in order to give it better shape and a better chance of fitting. A small rectangular piece of rubber was also cut to fit between the stanchion and the taillight housing mount. And what do you know? No rattle now! Wade tells me Old Blue has also suffered from this and it's stanchion is also shorter than it should be although not as short as Emily's.

Then around to the front of Emily, and there was a pool of water slowly spreading from a water pump leak. Just what Wade doesn't need, another water pump rebuild! But being a water pump with a rope seal a little judicious tightening of the gland nut was undertaken with apparently the leak stopping. This will be tested out by Wade taking Emily home for a night or two, just hope that's OK with Gina, to ensure everything is working properly.

Sorry for the late posting as I usually post events on the same day they occur. This time a combination of factors including a Packard club meeting on Thursday night and then driving 1,400 kms in the last 2 days conspired to thwart that.

Emily's road test

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Tuesday 10th August 2010

Late start at the workshop this morning, followed a 4 day trip north to Queensland starting last Friday and covering well over 2,200kms. I'm tired! Wade has been busy getting Emily inside, jacking her up, disassembling the front brakes, getting the wheel cylinders to, and already back from, Brooker Brakes. I started the cleaning of the disassembled parts in preparation for reassembly when first Noel arrived. Noel had with him the newly arrived NOS water pump for his '39. Noel also had a set of Autolite spark plugs for Emily from the same source. But there was a problem there because Emily has 14mm plugs and not 10mm. Fortunately Wade has sourced a set of NGK plugs for Emily locally so that really wasn't a problem. During discussions with Noel, Noel's friend Tony arrived to pick up some more running board trim strip clips to be able to finish off Noel's running boards. While Tony was there he was hit with two more jobs, 1) fixing the right side front door lock on Noel's '39, Wade took the handle off so Tony could take it away to play with, and 2) fixing the skin on Emily's left side door, it's being held together by tape at present. This fix will have to wait until after the National Rally because Emily needs to be complete until that is over. Once they departed I finished cleaning which encompassed the brake hardware, shoes, springs, wheel bearings and brake drums in readiness for re-assembly. Then drained the engine oil from Emily, gapped the new NGK plugs and installed them. Had to leave, at this stage, because of grandparental babysitting again being required this afternoon.

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Wednesday 11th August 2010

Brief note on today. Cleaned up Noel's NOS water pump, that is dusted off the light surface rust on the wire wheel. Also conducted a leak test on the pump by plugging the inlet neck with a plastic bottle stopper with plastic electrical tape around it to give a "not quite" watertight fit. There was a slight drip leak from the plugged inlet but no leaks elsewhere. Then painted it and a few other parts with Packard engine green. Lastly cleaned up Emily's front wheel cylinders, pistons, springs and bleed valves. Tomorrow the front brakes should go back on Emily

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Thursday 12th August 2010

Started by cleaning up the water pump parts painted yesterday for Noel's '39. Wade then assembled the front wheel cylinders for Emily and then the front brakes were re-assembled, shoes, adjusters, shoe location pins, springs, etc. Then it was my turn to get dirty or rather greasy. Re-packed the front wheel bearings, only trouble is I seem to attract more grease than the bearings do. Wade meanwhile was installing new flexible hoses. Brake drums back on and brakes adjusted and bled. I then went under the front end and greased all the fittings. Lovely to see the kaleidoscope of colours that resulted, squeezed out were brown, red and blue greases! While I was greasing Wade went round to pick up a new oil filter from Repco, only trouble was they didn't have one in stock but it'll be in tomorrow. Finally on went the wheels and Emily returned to the shop floor. Then about 7&1/2 litres of fresh oil was added but, because there wasn't a filter installed, start-up was postponed till tomorrow.

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Hi Mal, It looks like Emily has a Stromberg from a Holden fitted. It needs to have bigger than standard jets or it will run lean and burn valves. It will also stall when cold on foggy mornings, due to ice forming on the butterfly gap, same as on Holdens. Peter

Monday 16th August 2010

Beat Wade into the workshop for a change and noticed that Emily wasn't there but her air cleaner was. Had a look inside the air cleaner and found it didn't contain an element. Shortly thereafter Wade arrived in Emily as he'd taken her home for the weekend, wonder how Gina liked that! Wade explained that he needed to re-adjust Emily's front brakes and clutch pedal travel, because there was none.

But first the simple task of installing the NOS water pump in Noels's '39. The hub on the water pump shaft was being replaced because it was threaded for UNC bolts. I tapped out the UNF threads on the replacement fan hub so the bolts would fit without fighting. Sorry, it's always a fight in the tight confines between the radiator and fan, but it's best that all the threaded fasteners involved turn freely. That done I made a quick trip to Lee Bros to replace the UNC bolts Wade had picked up on Friday to replace the Whitworth bolts which hold the pump to the block but were found today to be too short, necessitating 1/4" longer bolts. The hub was then pressed off the water pump shaft and Noel's original hub pressed on in it's place. But.......the hub pressed on much too easily and accordingly was pressed off again and the original hub resumed it's original position. Next the pump setup was checked on the engine to ensure the fan pulley aligned with the crank pulley, which it did. Then finding some UNC bolts for the fan pulley from the junk box. Found five, one of which was cut down into a "dowell" to aid in fan fitment while the other four were run through a die to ensure baulky threads weren't an issue. I gasket cemented all the water pump and gasket surfaces and assembled the backing plate loosely by means of the three top nuts and bolts, but not loosely enough as it turned out later. While I was doing that, Wade scraped and cleaned the mounting surface on the front of the block. That done, and after I gasket cemented the block face, the new longer bolts were slipped into the pump housing. That was the plan but not all slipped in because my loose tightening of the upper bolts and nuts didn't allow any movement for alignment of the four lower bolts. Some quick spanner(wrench) work all bolts were in place and the pump was located on the front of the block and the bolts tightened up. On to the fan pulley and fan and despite the trials and tribulations earlier this is the real hard part. Hard because of the lack of space between radiator and fan in which to insert and then start the fan retaining bolts. First one went on comparatively easily but after that matters quickly degenerated. Next one, lost the spring washer, but no matter just replace it with a spring washer from the next bolt. Lost that spring washer too, so again replace it with the remaining spring washer. This time lost both the bolt and spring washer. None of these hardware items made it to the shop floor all having taken up residence somewhere in the crossmember under the harmonic balancer and lower pulley. Washers were easy to replace and we were fortunate to find another UNC bolt which also got the thread cleaning die treatment. Fortunately the next three attempts were all successful, very fortunately so, as I doubt there were any more UNC bolts of the right size left. Fan belt on and another Whitworth bolt replaced on the generator tension adjusting bracket and things were just about done. Had to leave at this juncture because of an unscheduled visit from the granddaughters, so missed start up but will find out tomorrow how that went.

Quote:Peter,

Besides the Strommie, Wade found out it has a different set of points so the set he ordered from the US doesn't fit. And I understand you've just bought another Packard, with a TJ Richards body no less!

And had an email from Bill B over the weekend, here's an edited version of it and a few of the pic's mentioned.

"One of my old customers came and took over 500 shots of the car yesterday(even worse than you!) with his fancy SLR Digital........
Car still not registered, joined "Bayside Vehicle Restorers Club" Friday, their Secretary is in Germany at the moment so waiting on paperwork to get "Club" rego. This Club is by far the biggest around here and have plenty of rallys, both weekday and weekend, so should be able to get a few miles under the belt. The license plate is a 1937 Pennsylvania one I purchased over there years ago and restored it to correct colors, will put it on for shows. The PACA badge is #.... from when I joined the club back in 1979. Temp gauge seems to be behaving itself at present ????"

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Mal, the photos of Bill B's 120C Convertible Coupe show a beautiful Packard. He must be most proud of it. One comment, the gasket or seal for the rumble seat lid should be on the lid not in the drain channel (don't ask me how I know). Steele makes a self adhesive rubber seal that works beautifully. I believe it is 1" wide and 1/4" thick. Have Bill B get a roll of it. Regards - John

(o{I}o)

Tuesday 17th August 2010

When Wade arrived in Emily this morning he drove her into the workshop. What for I wondered? Turns out in Wades trips to/from home over the last few days he'd noticed the ride was particularly hard especially over expansion strips in the road. Although the shocks on Emily probably need work that didn't sufficiently explain the harsh ride. A check last night found all the tyres(tires) were at 40psi so adjustment using the workshops air hose and gauge was the therapy undertaken. The spare was also checked and found to be at 10psi. The road tyres(tires) were reset to 24psi all round, although the manual indicates 22psi, because of the forthcoming National Rally with a lot of Highway travelling involved. Shortly thereafter Wendy arrived and picked up Emily happy in the knowledge she now won't have to compensate for the brakes pulling to the right.

Wade finished Noel's '39 yesterday, including re-installing the left front door handle and lock and starting and running the engine and there don't appear to be any water pump leaks. So today, before leaving for grand-daughterly minding duties, took the opportunity to go with Wade for a test run in the '39. Wade drove the '39 gently, listening and feeling as we went. All I can say is, to this tin ear, there wasn't a sound out of place. That is, if you discount the normal clunks and rattles which emanate from this machine. The diff was silent and smooth in operation and will be further tested with the run to/from Wade's home tonight and tomorrow morning.

Quote:John,

Sure is a lovely Convertible Coupe, I saw it in the metal when it was about 3/4 done and it stood out then. Bill will probably read your comments but, because what's done is done, I'd imagine wouldn't be likely to change things at this juncture. But he could file your advice away for future reference if need be.

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Wednesday 18th August 2010

Was only going to spend a short time at the workshop this morning because of more grandparenting requirements, looks like the granddaughters are becoming more demanding than Packards, very easy to accept. Turned out to be even shorter than expected with the timing being brought forward. In the little time I was there Noel's '39 went up on Rick's hoist, a thorough undercar inspection undertaken, and the diff oil topped up using the turkey baster method. Noel called Wade while I was there as he was due to come in today to pickup the '39. But depending on circumstances said he may not be there till tomorrow, whatever happens I'll find out tomorrow.

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Monday 23rd August 2010

Found Wade at the workshop in tidy up mode following the '37 115 Coupe and '39 120 Sedan having departed last week and Big Red back on the road on the weekend. Wade was also expecting Noel to call in with PackardInfo member Peter Packard(Peter Toet) and his wife Ann who were up in Sydney for yesterdays big display day at Eastern Creek. Tidy up done, what to do in the meantime? Why, photo catalogue the Packard parts Wade intends to forward to become part of PACA Club Stock. Part way through that exercise Noel, Peter and Ann arrived. Then Noel's mate Tony arrived with a pair of sidemount covers he'd repaired where the tops had rusted out. The tops rusted? I don't know why, but they were! Next to arrive was PackardInfo member packard34(Mat) who was in turn followed in by PackardInfo member PAC052(Jeff) and wife Margaret. They were bringing over, Margaret's brother and Jeff's brother in law not to mention PACA President, Michael's '54 Convertible for front wheel bearing work.

Once all the gathered Packard throng had gone their separate ways the front end of the '54 Convertible was jacked up, placed on jack stands and wheels and brake drums removed. Left front off and bearings and seals removed from the brake drum, looked reasonable but showing signs of wear. Right front was a different story with the outer bearing rollers in poor shape. A call to Dennis at ABC Bearings found that out of the 2 pairs of bearings required that 1 pair were in stock while the other pair were in the warehouse. Once Dennis has the lot together he'll call Wade for them to be picked up. In the meantime the drums and other hardware were cleaned in readiness for the arrival of the new parts and assembly of the components.

That done, finished the parts photo cataloging. Next was Big Red because yesterday morning Wade found himself sitting in the gutter next to Big Red changing a faulty condensor on the way to the big display day at Eastern Creek. Wade had left early with Barry Smith because Barry's '51 Convertible was representing PACA in the Concourse and needed to be there at the appointed setup time. Because of the setup deadline for the Concourse, and because Barry is unfamiliar with Sydney's geography, Wade when he spotted another "old car" told Barry to follow it. Just as well the "old car" was going to Eastern Creek and not out for a Sunday drive! So being back in the workshop Wade now took the opportunity to remove the distributor, put it on the bench and recheck it's setup. Wade also adjusted the radiator shutter setup in Big Red following going for a drive with Peter soon after arriving at the workshop.

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