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I think what would help if I did not show the the finished products for that seems to affend. I would like to show the what I call the blood guts and the beer. The nasty things it takes to repair and rebuild and restore Packards. And the different tools we invent and differenty products we here invent to make our Packard life go smoother. No more talk about what things in life really cost and no more money figures. I posted a small porportion of pic's that you might recognize and of projects we have completed. It is not always about the money as I worked on a 54 Patrician that was totally screwed up by a so called packard pro and did it for next to nothing because the old gentleman had not driven his car in along time. 6 months later he died. I have had my integrety ??? many times on this site and it would be easy to walk away. I don't need anything off this site. I think it is fun to share what we do for the Packards and how we do it. at www.midsouthernrestorations.com we work on alot of different brands. We have 6 full time employees who take the job serious. I like working on the Packards and the Fords..................AL

We have a lot of hands-on participants in these forums who, I'm sure, would enjoy seeing the effort that goes into your work, but anyone considering whether to do their own work or farm it out would also benfit.

I've always said that there's much a purist can learn from people who do quality custom work and vice-versa. The proof is in the presentation.

I was just kidding about the beer can method of checking line bore. The 359 had a bad rear main seal leak. After I changed that in the car I plasti-gauged the rear bearing and found .0035 clearance. Not good so I pulled motor and check all the bearings.The rods were in @.0015 and that is good but the crank had score marks. I decided to have the crank turned .010 - .010. The new tolerances will be held to .0015on all. I like em tight. The cam bearings looked rough so I'll replace them. Thank God the valve train look good. New hydraulic Lifters are expensive at $800.00 a set plus shipping. Then you have the hassle of dial indicating the valve stems for length and taking them to machine shop for cutting. I use this same method for the Packard V-8's as well as I have never found any written spec's on correct Valve stem length and when you install new valves you have to indicate and cut. Has anyone heard the story of where new straight 8 lifters come from. It is interesting and I was told by the source but I was sworn not to tell. If any one knows tell. The valves in the 359 will be re-seated. The pistons will have new rings and proper power honing done but first the pistons will come off rods for I can have the rotating mass Precision Balanced. A new timing chain and a rebuilt distributor from a 327 will be installed so I can back off the vacuum advance set by factory from 359 dist. This will help spark knock (pinging) cuased by Packard's inherent poor flame travel in combustion chamber. I'll top the motor off with the found cherry aluminum head and 2 head gaskets. 2 gaskets will improve on poor flame travel and drop compression. I am rebuilding this motor for re-liability. The exhaust manifold was sent off to be jet hot coated "cast gray" to preserve it. As far as the oil filter goes it is very week system. Even worse on the V-8's. The filter is last in line where it should be first. Eventually all oil should get a once through the filter but by that time you probably should change the oil any way. I'll catch slack for this one but I believe the oil filter should be removed from V-8 as the filter robs some pressure and volume from where it is needed most,,,, the oil starved lifters. The only true fix is a dry sump system and put filter first or a simple method is to just change oil more often. Look at an oil map of both engines and you'll see that filter is as useless as tits on a bore. I'll have pic's for this named forum when assembly time is here.

Interesting info. I didn't quite get the bit about beer - until I saw the pix posted separately to the gallery.

As for the oil filter, it always looked like an afterthough to me - even on straight eights, and not just on Packard. When you factor in the higher frequnecy of oil changes back then, partial-flow filtration was probably better than none at all - except for the V8.

Lifter noise and oiling issues with the V8s has been a hot topic for all the years that many of us have been online - over three diffrent forums. You're not off-base with your thoughts on removing the oil filter unit form the V8s. Let me explain.

With an OE pump modified to include a lower bushing in a thicker bottom plate (with vac pump eliminated) AND an upper bushing in the oil pump body, member PackardV8 still experienced lifter noise when coming of a highway run, with engine at normal operating temp. I believe he had also installed the late design camshaft thrust plate and spacer. Yet, he installed a shut-off to the filter and found that turning off flow through the filter eliminated that lifter noise.

This supports my position that the vacuum pump is not the culprit that some think it is - though it may contribute to premature wear of the pump driving shaft bore. The Olds V8 pump adaptation give more volume and pressure, but I think there may be more to the V8 oiling problem than we've seen.

I will know shortly if I'll be rebuilding another 352. It will have a different brand pump. The cam thrust plate has nothing to do with the problem. The oil filter only worsens the problem. The stock oil pump is week and a reworked on from Bob helps a little. If the motor would have been mine I would have set the worlds record for the farthest shimmed out oil releif valve. I love oil pressure. But I beleive there is an engineering flaw in the block that is dumping oil, faster than a raghead with a gun pointed at him. I know Lets find an old block and saw the SOB in half and quarters and eigths so we can see what is really going on. Or buy one of those wire cameras like they use in humans to check out the V-8's vains.

Talk to Keith (PackardV8), he has a block that is cut into several pieces.

Prince wrote: ' if I'll be rebuilding another 352. It will have a different brand pump '

What kind of pump???

packprince -

I have no forensic evidence to say what effect the late design camshaft thrust plate had on things, but you might be interested to know that my father was a mechanic in a Packard dealership during postwar years and purchased a brand-new Exec in the Spring of '56. It had 74,908 miles on the clock when he finally parked it in a field (c. 1963 due) to rust getting a foothold on the body, the Ultramatic acting up not long after a rebuild, and generally poor parts availablility around here in rural Western Pennsylvania. However, he never had the V8 engine apart and never experienced a lick of lifter noise with it. The car was likely built late enough in the production run that it should have had the late design oil pump (with plugged relief valve port) and camshaft parts, but while I found the car some years (beyond reasonable resto), I've never had time to do an autopsy on the engine.

The oiling system in any engine is essentially a controlled leak, and what Packard may have been trying to do with the camshaft parts was adjust one of those necessary leaks. While I've long been skeptical about PI's emphasis on castrating the vac pump (the nailhead Buick used similar set-up and never had such problem), Aller's approach clearly addresses a genuine source of air entering the system. However, it may not be the only one as we've had reports of lifter noise even with modified pumps. When all else fails, overfilling by one-half quart has been reported to provide some relief, but not always.

I think you may be on to something WRT a flaw in the block, and Eric is right - our member PackardV8 (Keith) has a scrap block that he's already made one cut on. Hopefully, he'll wanna take this a step further.

If I rebuild another 352 I'll be in contact with Keith, and to answer Keiths ??? I would try the OLds Pump. Back to Blood and guts. Here are pic's of my machinist grinding valve seats and seating in the valves. I'll try to load movie. if that does not work pic's will have to do. he also power honed block. I hope to be assembling this motor by the start of next week.

Trying to get pic's to up load........

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