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Time for an update. The teardown of the engine is complete, and rebuild will begin soon. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the engine--no cracks in the blocks and nothing rusted or frozen inside. Honestly, it's scary clean inside. Granted, the engine only has 48,000 or so miles on it and was stored properly, but I'm still ecstatic with the condition of the engine. Pictures are below.

Meanwhile, the body and frame are still at the media blaster in Indy, and next up I'm looking for a rebuilder for the engine and transmission somewhere near Indy. I've found a place for the engine but not the tranny. The tranny is a 3-speed manual with overdrive. The body and frame should be ready in a couple weeks.

Finally, after doing some further research, I've decided to keep the 6-volt positive-ground electrical system in the car both for simplicity and historical purposes.

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Nice block, sounds like you are well underway and "good on ya, mate" as is said down under. One note, please be sure ALL oil passageways are cleaned, then reviewed and cleaned again. I will be including cleaning of oil passages at my next Tech session. Too many war stories in the last year...

Picked up the One-Twenty this morning from the media blaster, and I am really pleased with how much car is left. The frame is in perfect condition--no metal with thinning or holes in it. As I expected, I'll need to replace the front floor pans as well as the trunk pan, but as a whole, the car is in great shape. Other body work will include the exterior "kick" panels (between the firewall and front door jam) as well as the rear wheel wells and the passenger side front door.

I'm out of town from now until the first week of December, but the next plan is to remove the body and focus my attention on the frame. I am currently taking the transmission to a rebuilder and have a potential rebuilder looking at the engine. As a whole, all is well in the world. Pictures are attached for your viewing pleasure.

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It's been a couple of months since the last update. Since receiving the car back from the mediablaster, I have painted the entire frame and some suspension components in POR-15 paint and have began cutting out and refabricating the front floor pans, trunk pan, and the inner rocker panels. I've been using 18-gauge steel for the pans. Eventually I am going to replace the leaf springs and rear shocks for the Packard. The shocks, springs, and steering components were rebuilt several years ago and have virtually zero miles on them.

I put in around 4-5 hours per week on the car, and my main focus is the metal fabrication needed on the body. While that is going on, I have the engine and transmission at a rebuilder, so when those come back, I can install them onto the frame along with all of the fuel and brake lines and have an operable vehicle that needs the body added to it.

As always, advice and suggestions are always welcomed. I have already learned a great deal about the car through this site, and I'm sure that I'll have a lot more questions as we slowly put the car back together. Some recent pictures are below.

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