Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Historically, up until perhaps WW II, the classic lubricant to be used with crocus cloth for polishing crankshaft journals and the like was lard. No doubt there are superior products today like lapping oil as has been mentioned but I've always thought the use of lard was curious. It's recommendation no doubt had some basis in actual experience

I hadn't heard the lard before but why not back then. It seems to have been the go to for lots of lube needs--wagon axle bearings and lots of sliding applications. I think it & butter might have even been a first aid salve for burns & wounds.

There was an episode of a TV show where Jay Leno was showing his garage and demo'ing his stationary steam engines. Said they had been modified for his display with oil cups added. Asked why, he said the original lube method was lard or pig fat. If you ran out, then go slaughter another pig and throw more pig fat on the bearings. Noted there was a shortage of pigs running around outside and he was afraid if he did find one, the place would smell like a restaurant and he'd have all the people around coming over there and would have to open a diner.

I'd be skeptical to use any modern lards. Probably full of sugar and salt like the rest of the food industry has become over the last 20 years.
Besides, not a good idea to bury car parts in the backyard for a fortnight either just for cleansing. They would rust!!!

Next problem is how is the process actulay performed. In lieu of a drill press or lathe u can chuck a common ordinary hand drill motor in a vice.

Find a plastic or wood dowl that will fit real close to the ID of the piston. Place the assembly in the chuck of the drill motor.

Cut a long strip of crocus cloth about 1/4 inch wide and 16" inches long or thereabouts. Make 2 or 3 wraps around the piston like a candy cane stripe and hold each end of the crocus cloth. Apply the lubricant and start the drill motor. Move the crocus cloth backwards and forwards across the full length of the piston in an even and steady way.

Don't get carried away with trying to polish it out to a mirror finish. It's not necessary to have a mirror finish and only remove enuf material to smooth it out from any rough edges. Use a slow to medium speed drill motor.

I wouldn't turn it real fast.

I don't like doing the following but sometimes there is no other choice:

For the piston bore in the pump body take a wooden, plastic or other soft metal material like aluminum or brass dowel and cut a split in the end of the dowel about 1/2 " deep. Place a strip of crocus cloth in the slot and wrap it around the dowel. Chuck it in the drill motor. Put that in the hole and run the drill motor. PRobably have to mash the end of the dowel slot together to keep the cloth from falling out of the dowel on the up stroke.

Note that the crocus cloth polishing is only suitable for extremely minor or superficial irregularities in machined surfaces. It is NOT in any way a substitute for conditions that require major machining.

From the looks of your piston in the pictures it mite be too far gone to save. It's the bore of the pump body that the piston slides in that would have me worried at this point.

See if Kanter or one of the other Packard suppliers have a pump and weigh the cost vs effort vs outcome of the polishing procedure. Just mite have to buy a new or good used pump body and piston.

I can't say I've looked at hundred of these, but certainly dozens. The piston looks completely serviceable as is to me though as PackardV8 suggests a look at the bore is adviseable. Excepting the V8 pumps, oil pumps tend to show little wear as they spend their entire lives with lots of lubrication, assuming no neglect. Checking the gear tooth to housing clearance is of course important, as is the clearance between the end gear faces and the housing cover.

If you decide to clean the bore as PackardV8 suggests, clean the living heck out of it, any residual abrasive is going to circulate everywhere with obvious consequences.

PS - any remember that any oil that gets past the piston may reduce the volume available for engine lubrication so I'd really not want to do anything that increases the clearances. If the bore is really bad (highly unlikely) think about another pump body, or having it sleeved.

Polishing the piston bore of the pump can be tricky. It depends on how the piston seals when fully closed. I'm not real familiar with the 288 pump.

Some pump pressure relief valve pistons seal against a reduced diameter 'seat' against the top surface of the piston. OThers simply depend on the piston to move far enuf back in the bore to uncover voids in the side of the bore.

IF the 288 is of the first type then polishing out the bore mite could corrupt the sealing stop at the end of the bore.

I don't know. Give the polishing a try. Most likely will work out just fine. My 48 with 288 engine has external oil pump so i assume the 51 is the same. Fairly ez to service compared to most engines otherwise.

Keep us posted on how it turns out.

arg, more good and bad news. The good news is I have another pump from my 327 which I will use.

I had actually bought an oil pump rebuild kit from Kanter, which is what I was doing here. The kit contained drive gear and shaft, driven gear (pictured earlier), a dowel for the gear that mates to the camshaft, and a new pressure spring.

Today I brought the new shaft and drive gear plus housing and camshaft interface gear to the machine shop at my job. (automotive transmission development) A 1/8 inch hole has to be drilled through the new shaft, and the dowel then goes thorugh the camshaft interface gear holding it to the shaft....My colleague in the machine shop drilled the shaft crooked (on a drill press!) So this new shaft is kaput.
I guess like fuel and water pumps, it pays to leave the rebuilding to the pros.

The piston however bad it looks is really smooth, and the bore also looks good, does not hang anywhere. By smooth I mean running a fingernail over it, I can feel no surface irregularities. Monday, Monday....

Going to paint my driveshaft now, I don't think I can mess that up too bad.

"....My colleague in the machine shop drilled the shaft crooked (on a drill press!) So this new shaft is kaput."

Redrill the shaft at rite angles to the bad hole.
THIS TIME DO IT RITE!!!!!
Take a MILLED square block of steel or Aluminum and drill a guide hole in it for the pin drill size and a guide hole the size of the shaft at rite angles to the drill pin hole just drilled. Locate the shaft in the block and put it on the drill press (or mill) and drill it.

IT's called a Drill Guide!!!! I'm not a master machinist. I'm not a master of anything. But anyone who claims to be a professional machinist should have known to do that.

EDIT: The gear itself could have been used as a Q&D drill guide.