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I'm assembling my lower end and am stumped. As you can see, either the new bearings are too big or my rod big end is too small. Anyone have the specs on the rod ID ? Or, any other ideas? Thanks, Bob PS The nuts are snug and the cap doesn't meet the rod. Too much crush

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Easy...you are attempting to install 39-47 rod bearings in a 38. Pre-39 takes a slightly thinner bearing. Lemme know if you have trouble finding what you need.

Thanks for the quick response Mr Flackmaster! The bearings are on their way back to Kanter and hoping for a fast turnaround, Bob

So here's the latest. I sent the bearings back to Kanter with the photo and a letter asking them to exchange them for the correct ones. On the phone today I discover that I need to bore out my rods to accept the later bearing! They were already rebuilt! How was I supposed to know I ask. Their response was that the instructions came with the shipment. No, I'm real sure they didn't. Anyway, they are shipping back to me the bearings and I'll need to get the rods done again, oh well, Bob

I would think you told the folks at Kanter Auto Products what you were ordering the bearings for - a 1938. Kanter does not normally supply the earlier bearings - relying on you to pay to have your rods resized to accept the later bearings. yeah, thats the way its been for years due to the limited availability of the early bearings...but they are out there. I have a good supply of them, and sure I'd be happy to supply them, but my reply was not wholly self serving...firstly simply to answer your initial question.

What size bearings is your crank cut or polished for?

DAF

Edit - removed lame reference and Kmart reference. (and Kmart is not meant to be offensive, many Packard people I know simply refer to Kanter Auto Products as "Kmart." Sure, Packard guys that have been around forever know that the you can resize the rods for the late bearings. Footnotes, asterisk's and fine print aside (yeah, bold print too) it seemed that the original poster did not catch the issue and felt caught by surprise.

PS - I have .030 early rod bearings available.

PPS - a limited run of the flanged 320 bearings were produced about 5 years ago, some may still be available, contact me if you need a set.

The customers original order was placed in September of 2018. Just recently he had called to do an exchange for the main in .020's and the rods in .030's. In our Packard model specific catalog and website we have stated the need to resize the connecting rods. We also than include with the initial order to the customer a service bulletin pertaining to the bearings supplied. So we did our due diligence in informing our customer through 3 different means(2 being indirect and 1 direct in the forum of a service bulletin) So one should not consider our excuse lame nor refer to us as Kmart no name calling is required nor provoked.

We are working with the customer to handle his needs as quickly and efficiently as possible. We do have the stds, .001 and .002 in the smaller sizes but for the .020" up the use of the modern bearings requiring resizing are supplied.

Thanks
James From
Kanter Auto Products

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This problem enters the gray area of what constitutes Packard parts? I used to work with a top notch machinist who fitted Dodge bearings to the 320cuin and 384cuin Packard engines. He would weld and mill the rods for correct side clearance in as is the modern practice. The owner would get a box with the part number on it. This work was not cheap. As time goes by even those common bearings will become scarce.

Question one is: Are the bearings in question actual Packard or something else?

Almost everything today is something else. I used to have some of the genuine stuff and the boxes have since turned to dust. Seriously, they fell apart from age.

Question two is: How much information is sufficient?

Well, simply throwing parts at the customer and saying "you figure it out" is not very good. The least that can be included is the correct amount of bearing crush - generally .003 to .006 with a limit of over .008 necessitating machine shop work. This will provide the required 12,000 psi interference fit.

For the Packard Six this is complicated for the guy doing the work himself. And good machine work is getting hard to find in this dumbed down, Junknet, the only skills that matter are verbal skills trash economy of ours.

It's a funny thing that I was wondering this morning why everybody talks about why a BA is not sufficient anymore.
The answer, I think, is that universities have been watering down degrees to keep people there and administrators at inflated salaries paid for by skyrocketing tuition charges.

So anyway, we all need to practice trying not to behave like junknet entrepreneurs and practice providing better information.

New update. Kanter returned the correct bearings but when my machinest read the instructions and determined that he would need to hone about fifteen thousandths from the rod big end diameter he was not happy. He is looking for someone to bore it out. I appreciate the offer of the correct bearings but I'm not sure yet how to proceed . And, I tried to order head studs and was told there is a six week backlog! This is a very frustrating engine build, Bob

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Sorry for your delays, this is a hobby that can require plenty of patience.

Best practice is to store the crankshaft on-end, not laying horizontally.

We reproduce the later 39-47 bearings in large quantities and have found that when we send out the original thin bearings for 35-38 cars many customer's engines already have the alter rods in them or resized early rods. Like Packard we supply "Quality parts for longer life". Our bearings are made with modern babbit which is stronger and longer lasting than original.

To add to the confusion Packard incorrectly packaged many sets of rod bearings marking the boxes with 387600(39-47 #) when they contained 35-38 bearings.

On the question of whether some bearings are original Packard consider that Packard never made shell bearings,sourcing them mainly from Federal Mogul, deemed "other" by some. So bearings in Packard boxes are not really Packard, just like heaters made by Harrison or radiators with the McCord brass tag on them.

On head studs, they're not a simple as they look. The threads differ on each end, the ones going into the block are slightly larger by thousandths so as to make a water seal as they go into the water jacket. Our last batch of studs had threads that were under spec so we returned them to the manufacturer and have to wait several months for replacements. We could have sent them out and recommended using a sealer but we do not make compromises. Sorry for the delay but that's the not-so-simple aspect of supplying parts for older cars and the Six in question is 80 years old. In our shop we're rebuilding an '88 Caddy and some engine parts are no longer available...it's only 31 years old!