Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Turbopackman is right on the mark! Purchased the car in St Louis and am working out some bugs - steering, carburetor, tires that were too big, missing trunk lock, etc. Fred at Max Merritt has been very helpful. Hope to get it in top shape soon!

I could tell by the curtains and the "signature" light from the garage door showing through.

Anyway, that's one beeeaaauuutiful car! I LOVE the deep red/maroon color, it looks really nice on that body.

It is a nice looking car. Did you check the center steering link under the radiator? Unless it is really, really badly rusted causing some other damage, you may not be able to identify it as the problem. I'd say there is a 99 percent chance, though, that it is frozen up. My car is a 50,000 mile car that was stored indoors all of its life, and it was frozen stiff. While I also replaced king pins and tie rods, it was when I replaced the center steering link when my steering finally felt almost new. I still need to make some steering box adjustments.

To where do the wires from the continuously-on light lead???

"There's several reason why I'd put radials on an old car, and safety's the first. Radial tires give you so much more control of the car as compared to bias ply. You have more of the tire contacting the road as compared to bias ply.

But don't take my word for it, try Michelin's: Bias ply Vs Radial"

Eric.
I went to the Michelin site and didn't see anything about radials being more safe than bias, and I do not believe that because my tires are bias that they are un-safe.

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I suppose the part about the 40% more contact area of radials over bias ply is just a non-issue, as well as the sidewall flexing being transmitted to the tread causing rapid wear, reduced traction, and higher fuel consumption. The whole page is about radials being safer than bias ply tires!

The main point is, if you're a stickler for originality and are anal about everything being correct, as well as your car is a trailer queen instead of a driver, then by all means go for the bias ply tires. If you drive your car more than 10 miles a week, then I recommend radial tires. They will improve the handling and the tires will last longer to boot.

Non issue for me. I still didn't see anything that said radials were more safe. My car is far from a trailer queen, and I don't hesitate to take it on a 1,000-mile weekend trip (most of the time traveling at 75mph) and the last thing on my mind while driving is "I sure wish this thing had radials." In fact, most the time I'm thinking, "Why would anyone put radials on a car that handles this well." My father, who owns a similar car, put radials on his. There is very little difference in the handling qualities between the two. He is very sorry he made the move, especially after finding out that his front end did, indeed, need rebuilding.

I'll stand by my point that if your entire steering and suspension has been properly restored, you'll be very happy with the way your car handles. Braking, on the other hand, is much better with radial tires. Drive accordingly. Drive safely. Don't make the car drive for you, because you'll probably end up "over driving" your car's capabilities with a false sense of security that you can stop paying attention now that your car has radial tires.

Perhaps the difference is in prewar cars vs postwar cars. I have no experience with postwar cars, but from what I've heard, chassis quality went to hell in a hand-bag in the 1950s.

It sounds like everyone is in agreement that all the front end issues need to be addressed before you dive into the steering box. I had similar conserns with excessive "play" in our '41. I took it to a good alignment shop and let them do their thing adjustment wise and 90% of the play went away. On radials, I switched to radials on both the Clipper and our '52 Mayfair. There was a HUGE difference with the Mayfair and SOME improvement with the Clipper. The width of the tires is probably the reason. I like the radials for tracking reasons, expecially on heavilly "rudded" roads. They go straight as an arrow now and don't jump in and out of the ruts! Stopping is better too.....

Radials being safer, does not make necessarily make Ply-Bias tires unsafe. Unsafe means there is an inherent danger with it. I don't remember anything in the newsreels about all cars before Radials running off the roads and into ditches if driven more than 10 miles a week. So lets not confuse opinion with fact.

I will go back and check if we missed anything on the steering including the center link but unfortunately I don't have a lift available for about two weeks...

Regarding the switch/light unit that is burning hot, it looks like the wires from the switch go to the back of the heater and blower below the dash but I can't see exactly where because the wires disappear behind the unit. So I am still trying to figure out how to turn the thing off. I suppose the easy way would be to disconnect the wires at the switch and tape them but that is not a permanent solution and the heater would not work. Maybe that switch mechanism is just faulty and needs to be replaced but I can't find anything about what these things really looked like originally.

Does anyone know what kind of controls the heaters in the 1940 had and how they functioned? Anything like the picture at the top of this series or is it really an aftermarket add on?

By the way - to inject a bit more into the "circular" arguments about the tires... guess what? I bought radials!!! oh no!!!

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<-----Carefully backing out of the thread looking over his shoulder for Owen....