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

Hi forum,

I hope Gregor doesn't mind me posting a picture of his cars here. We got to spend a few hours tinkering on saturday and found a few things that were easy to fix, and got the car running a little bit better.
A rookie mistake, and easy to correct, the battery was hooked up wrong. I was able to convince gregor that positve ground was correct Then we noticed that the car was not charging. With engine running and w/o we had only 6 volts on the batt...hmm, voltage regulator did not look too old and crusty, but the 'Gen' cable was burnt off the connector. Re-connected that, and had a nice 7-ish volts or so.
Anybody ever see a burnt 'gen' cable near the regulator? Did this happen because somebody ran the car with the polarity switched, or does it indicate a faulty regulator? The rest of the cable was actually OK, it kind of looked like the cable was injured(only a few strands conducting) at the connector and just from conducting burnt...

Next thing was that the treadle vac was hissing from the floor board, and producing a monster vacume leak. I plugged off the vac hose, and voila, the idle was much better, and driving around the barnyard was also better! I think a treadle vac rebuild is badly needed here. Already saw the write up that Ross did a while back. -With the vac hose connected there was no brake assist to speak of, so removing the vac didn't make the brakes worse, but engine better, which I know is a liability... The brake booster was only growling, and not boosting.

Just spoke with gregor, and he is getting a backfire through the carb once in a while. I think his spark plug gap is too small. (a 4bbl that I wish I had on my clipper )

He is still undecided if the car will get a treatment of Owatrol Oil to keep it rusty like it is, or paint it....I kind of think it is cool as it is.
Glad I could get my 'packard fix' since my clipper is still waiting for the engine shop to tell me what oversize pistons to order.
(Oh, and that's gregors 38 chevy RHD with rumble seat (called a mother in law seat in germany) he imported from south africa) Also a cool ride.
Here's to spring coming soon, and happy packarding!

-Mike

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the audi is a buityfull car . Ha Ha .
thanks for your help .
so tomorrow i cut the exhaust out of my bel air and i will put it in my packard .
i am glad you came yesterday . i would not have found the problem with out you .
today it ran nicly and one time it went out and did not start again for a wile .
and then it started shooting fire out of the carb .