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Early this summer I went to store the car away. When backing out the driveway, the steering abruptly locked and became totally wedged. I put the car away and decided to tackle when it cooled off a bit. It did, and I realized our Packard Info. Laughlin river Fun Run is in reality, just around the corner. With that, I tore into the steering box.

I found a few of the 1/4 inch ball bearings had sheared in half, causing the rest to spill out. As they spilled out, they ruined the roller and damaged the cross shaft. I thought "Hmm... what an unusual failure." Umm... not true, I've learned it is a rather common failure. Before someone replies "did you have grease / oil in the steering box?" Don't, because I did.

Armed with a serviceable cross shaft, I went about installation. The roller pin in the acquired cross shaft was loose. I re-swaged the pin, taking up some play in the assembly by bringing the bearing races closer together.

Next was shimming the cross shaft so the roller had the correct contact with the worm. I cut a donor cover in half to allow adjustment of the cross shaft jam nut yet allow me to see and feel work and roller contact. There is a procedure in the shop manual that describes pull at the steering wheel rim. That is well and good with brand new no mile parts, not as good with 72 year old parts that have miles and wear.

The modern seals were found to be of thinner width than the old leather seal, so I doubled the seals. Also installed the cross shaft first, and taped the splines to prevent seal damage as they were slid over the cross shaft. Installation was routine. How nice that the steering box will be oil tight.

At the same time, I took the opportunity to replace a couple of shift linkage pins that were fairly worn. Will weld up and re-machine other components another day to tighten up the wobble stick.

Once finished, the steering was tight, with no detectable play in the steering wheel to pitman movement and detectable resistance when on the high spot of the worm. Drove out nicely, with the steering now centered on the high spot and wheel straight up & down. I believe this failure may have been underway for many, many years given the characteristic prior to repair.

Bottom line, be nice to your steering box. Avoid crashing the steering stops. While I'm not totally sure how or why this one failed, I know much more about the function and nature of this box.

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Glad the problem didnt occur at speed on the road! YIKES!

Did a little work on the car, further refreshing the shift linkage in hopes of making it a bit less of a wobble stick. This time the ends of the short turnbuckle links had worn ends. The solution was to weld them up and file back, hand fitting each end to each lever for the best possible fit. It was slow, but worth the effort for sure. Now just 20 other little lose points to deal with. That said, it's never hung between shifts, just a pet peeve.

When David, Peter, and Noel visited week before last, they were inspecting the car and were delighted to find the passenger side splash pan not installed so they could look at some details. It reminded me that I have that pan, why not install it. Oh yea, the exhaust pipe runs through it. Oh well... pulled the muffler away from the head pipe and installed the pan. Glad I did, one more part off the shelf and back where it belongs. Really enjoyed the visit with the fellows and better halves.

That's all for now, and West... yea I honestly will make your heater tube support bracket. I think about it every time I get near the car. Perhaps a Christmas surprise!

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Jim,

I didn't understand how the exhaust pipe goes through the right splasher. I must be missing a side splash PAN, like the little triangle-shaped one in front, in the horizontal, not the vertical plane? Not a right side splasher like this?

https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=5878&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=40

Post 50

Hi Joe, this is the pan that goes between the frame rail and engine. Keeps rocks and kittens out of the engine bay. In reality, it just keeps us from having good access from the bottom of the car up. Anyway, I apologize for the confusion and took a couple shots to show where the pipe goes between the pan and the upper support bar.

Looking at your posts in the link you provided really gives a deep appreciation for the level of detail and quality work on your car. It's simply magnificent Joe! Hat's off to you!

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For a 1940 model

I am looking for a particular pan that goes in the front grill shell and is a removable filler piece. The pan fits between the bottom of the radiator and a panel that bolts to the nose of the grill. I hope the image provides a better idea of what part I'm looking for.

Thanks,

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Final work on car today prior to leaving for Laughlin this evening. Installed vertical air deflectors in the front grill. Finally getting to the point of doing little things I've wanted to get to, but haven't had time lately.

Plugs cleaned, oil & filter changed, greased, points cam lubricated, ready to go!

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I tried to resist getting involved in adding a trunk rack to the car; they are really a pain in the butt. You have a harder time getting into the luggage compartment, they increase the overall length of the car, and are a nightmare to find every little proper piece, especially '39 Super 8 and '40 senior line cars, as they use unusual stanchions, and a rack with pivots located specific to those models only.

It all started with a lovely trunk, including fitted luggage found at a previous years PI meet. This trunk was never apparently used, the nicest I'd ever seen. Shortly after buying, it dawned on me that "now you've done it dummy, you'll have to install a trunk rack".

Needless to say, the parts came from many, many places and usually the work of a certain secret Packard Parts aficionado in the vicinity of Dallas. Seems like many Packard parts conspiracies unfold in Dallas. Imagine my surprise upon returning from a trip, only to find a boxed up trunk lid in my office. This came by way of Santa Maria, California, but I'm not fooled, the conspiracy was concocted in Dallas. I'm not buying the loan parts man theory either.

So why another trunk lid? Well, in '40, senior cars had a different trunk handle, and different license plate light, located higher and separate from the trunk handle when trunk rack equipped. Also different are the bumper brackets, and bumper. The bumper no longer says "Packard" when trunk rack equipped. The license plate lens is also different and '40 only.

The job of fitting required pieces began over Christmas 2012. The trunk lid was tough to fit. It had to be fit so to speak, including shrinking side to side, and modifying the curve by gently bending the whole thing. A few dents needed to be worked out also. It's a nicer lid than the one on the car. The one on the car could have had the holes welded up and re-drilled otherwise. Next up was fitting the rack components which is on-going.

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I'm really lucky to have had some nice trunk handle pieces to have mixed and matched in order to have ended up with a functional assembly. The T handle had been re-plated and never used. The lock cylinder was full of copper and chrome. After hours of cleaning out, the lock cylinder out of the original handle on the car was fitted to the T style. The face plate was also in very nice shape, but had a broken stud. The stud was an integral past of the pot metal casting, therefore fragile and had broken. Thought on it for a while and came up with a fix. Caught the outside of the broken nub, and threaded down the middle. Probably stronger than new.

Needless to say, there are lots of little details I negated to mention, like everything it took to create the assembly, like spring, square washer, cross drilling to add a cotter key retainer, and so on. Have about 12 hours labor in completing. It sure was worth every moment, turned out so nice!

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Nice work, Jim. Trunk lids are hard to find. I just had to replace mine, and spent a ton of money finding one that wasn't rusted out, and one where the inner shell wasn't all bent up from someone trying to close the lid without unlatching the latch. Then, like you, it needed dent repair and fitting.

Your trunk-rack addition, in my opinion, improves the looks of the car quite a bit. You did it the hard way, by searching for all the pieces individually. Unfortunately, finding all the pieces in one purchase only happens AFTER you've finished buying everything you need. Murphy's law.

The steel trim for the rack is available from Max Merritt, except the reproductions are stainless steel. Nice pieces. I just bought some while at Hershey.