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Sounds good! The 'real McCoy' blocks are very expensive so thanks for this idea, I'll give it a go.

Larry, are you still counting the railway wagons of the train to China? Would love to hear from you!

G'day Guscha,

I'm still doing a bit of work on the car (mainly small stuff and getting parts) but very disjointed owing to family visits. I just got one of the radios I have working a few days ago, will post on that asap.

We have just been graced with a second grand-daughter, Mila Indiana Rose, who right now is just three weeks old. Beautiful! Our kids (four of them, grown now) are scattered all over the place so it's a bit of a hike to get to see them. Keeps me away from the Packard but what a great distraction, hey!

Also, yesterday I replaced the timing belt on my 'ersatz' car (Nissan Pathfinder - it's the 'Frontiera' over there I think??). That was a full day's work but went well, first V6 belt I've done. Not a hard job, just a long one.

I should be back 'posting' on the blog very soon!

Have a great Christmas won't you!

Pics of our three grandchildren . . . .

Isabella,




Zac. . . .




and baby Mila, just four days old




with her dad -our son Ben

A beautiful crew you have there! I understand the hikes to get to everyone..I see it as part of the fun!
Have a Merry Christmas Larry! Thanks for all of your inspiring posts!

Larry, I do not know the German label for the Pathfinder but congrats on the belt job. Modern cars I don't touch, a cobbler should stick to his last. As Paul (55clipperguy) said: a beautiful crew! Ben looks like a champion and btw be so kind to PM me the mobile phone number from Isabella (in twenty years). Forget all Packard blogs as long as your wonderful family surrounds you. Merry Christmas!



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Thanks Paul and Guscha. As you can see, Mila is possibly the smallest and youngest Santa in captivity, with her little red Santa suit on!! Brought us more smiles than the super-sized Santa dude that we have stuck in our chimney!

Restoration of '51 Radio(s)

While the weather stopped other work on the car I decided to get the two '51 radios (Model 416387) I have out and see if I could get them working. I had the circuit diagram, handbook and one full set of original valves just in case, but I was soon to discover that I need not have ordered all the valves!

Long ago I replaced all the capacitors in both units but didn't get any further, putting the radios back into storage for a couple of years, until now. I didn't have a power supply then or a decent 6V battery to use for testing. Both radios are in fair condition mechanically and electrically. They haven't been 'left out in the rain' or stored in poor conditions.

Some caps are old micas with a strange colour code. These are Cornell-Dubilier caps and I managed to get a copy of the colour code which is available at

Cornell-Dubilier Code

It takes a bit of figuring out, as the code differs from the general colour codes for resistors and caps etc. Usually mica caps will be ok, they don't deteriorate like waxed paper caps. First step is to always replace any old wax/paper caps when doing up an old radio.

I unplugged a vibrator can from one chassis and applied 6volts to it - no action. Decided to see if I could repair it. My brother (who was in the radio and TV repair business for many years) reckoned most could be repaired provided you took care opening the sealed can. I carefully ground the rim off the can and pulled the unit out. Both sets of contacts were shorted with metal filings and gunk. They cleaned up well when I dragged some fine emery paper between them. You should see an air gap between both sets of contacts. No adjustment was needed.

The radios had not been used since at least 1975, and probably long before then, so I had little confidence that either would work straight up, but I was to get a surprise. At around 4 volts from the supply the vibrator started. I measured a few voltages but there was no HT. Turned the volts up to over 5V and I got static and finally a station. I had decent B+ voltage! The fidelity was really poor as the speaker was old and in poor condition. In fact it might have been original, around 60 years old.

Tuning pulled in other stations but occasionally the OZ4 rectifier valve would just quit. There's an intermittent connection or a marginal valve elsewhere which I need to eventually find.

Left the radio on for over an hour and it continued working well. Hooked up a new 6 x 9 speaker and the fidelity was much better - even OK to listen to.

Next I powered up the second set, and the vibrator worked OK but there was no high tension (B+) voltage. Looks like there is an open circuit in the vibrator transformer winding, so I'll have to find a replacement. These are rare so it might take a while.

I might not have time to work on the second radio for a while, with holiday visits etc happening.

775 &776: views of the vibtator can and innards. The unit can be opened by grinding off the retaining lip around the bottom.




776?: The vibrator after the contacts had been cleaned. Air gap is now visible between contacts.





782: Vibrator case showing lip ground away




779: The power supply. Very handy as you can bring voltage slowly up to reduce the chance of damage, while looking for 'smoke and fire'!




800: The Rectifier tube (OZ4) glowing nicely. It can be easily replaced with a solid state unit for extra reliability, but OZ 4 valves are only a few bucks each anyway and keep things 'original'.




762: One of the radios showing the replacement capacitors and the unusual Dubilier mica caps.





724: A 'ring-in' miniature valve has been substituted in the past . . . it works aok




757: Getting a replacement speaker is proving to be difficult. They are low profile and a tight fit in the chassis.

There's a place here in the U.S. on the West Coast that does speaker rebuilding..

speakerrepair.com

BTW Since it's Winter here I guess I'll have to get the radio out of my Clipper and see if it works....

Thanks for the link to the speaker resto site Paul. I've been trying to find a similar place here but no luck. Seems it's difficult to get these old style speakers, all the newer 6X9inch ovals are much bigger these days.

Let me know how you go with your radio - we can exchange helpful hints.

Well, first a bit of an update about the last / previous post. I never did find a 6" x 9" speaker anywhere that would fit into the original Packard radio from my '51. Looked extensively and made lots of enquiries, got nowhere. All 6 x 9's these days have larger magnets (for a start).

Even the idea of re-coning etc - no luck! Contacted a couple of likely places in the US and was told they just don't repair / recone that type of speaker.

Bought a speaker that supposedly would fit (no guarantees) and had it shipped to Oz, but although it was close, it was too large and I would have needed to chop out a section of the radio chassis to even 'shoe-horn' it in.

So what I'm doing is mounting that new 6 x 9 (double Voice Coil - DVC) speaker on the rear parcel shelf, and the original speaker (which still does work!) will remain in the radio body, with a cutover switch (probably) in case I want to switch to it for total authenticity.

Benefit of a DVC is that if you eventually fit a stereo tuner / player / MP3 player somewhere (usually hidden) in your Packard the speaker accepts both channels OK. (Of course the better option is to mount two speakers but some might not want to do that so DVC is an alternative).

If anyone ever does find a substitute speaker of the right size - please post details! I'm sure there'll be people who want to hear about it.