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Today I got a couple dents out of one of the stainless steel trim pieces using just a 1x4 from an old pallet, and a 2# dead-blow hammer. The dents are still noticeable, but the apparent damage is greatly lessened.

Got some excess undercoating off some more trim with oven cleaner, but it didn't do anything for the original area that I was dealing with some posts below. I'll try again and leave it on for longer. Can recommends even 6 hours.

I vacuumed the rear seat bottom with my mini Shop Vac which made a noticeable difference, but it still needs cleaned properly. Plus other small things.

Photos: Before and after of both dents; "line" in the seat made just by vacuuming.

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Once the really bad spots are reduced to something more reasonable you might be able to refine and finish the job by making a cast of the molding shape using a low melting temp metal alloy poured at a good profile spot inside the molding.

Cerrolow or Bolton 117 is alloy of several low temp metals and available on ebay. It melts at less than 120 degrees which should not damage or distort the molding. It is a low enough temp that several things could be used as a dam without melting so you could get a solid block casting an inch or two long. A big blob of silicone sealant might work as would plaster of paris. If you don't want to work with two of the metals other alloys without them are available but melt at higher temps.

Once the metal hardened remove the dams and slide or tap the casting down the molding to the damaged area. Let it assist as a dolly in recreating the correct profile. It would take some careful work with a hammer and file to get the profile back but probably doable. When finished a butane torch will remelt the stuff to get it out of the molding and ready for use again.

"Long" time no update but I'm making incremental progress on things. I'm also switching jobs so priorities are a bit abnormal at the moment.

- I went to Hershey and while there picked up some parts from Ross and on the way back picked up some from "point" on here. Nice older guy, had a nice chat with him for a while (mostly about Packard stuff, of course). I left from north of Pittsburgh that day around 7am, drove to Hershey PA, left there around 4:30, drove to Central City getting there around 8pm, then after leaving there took a nap shortly after, finally getting up to the Clarion area around 3am that day! VERY long day with a lot of driving AND walking.

- Making incremental progress on everything. Variously cleaning, painting, polishing, rust-removing, but it's all slowly coming together.

- I realized Reyman disconnected the underseat heater to fuse the fuel pump. Likewise, the wiper hot wire was jammed in one of the other fuse blocks. (Picture below.) IDK why he didn't hook them directly to the ignition switch, but that's what I'll be doing, with inline fuses. I have some spare Bosch relays so at some point I plan to wire them thru those to reduce the arcing in the ignition switch. Relevant thread.

- So now my underseat heater works! But as far as I know the wipers still don't. Honestly maybe next year I'd like to just swap the (seemingly nonfunctional) electric unit for the pneumatic one again. I'll just need some type of vacuum pump to power it with as my car doesn't have the original oil pump. However it DOES have the original washer jar, so it would be cool to have all that going properly at some point.

- Realized my trunk light just had a bad ground. It's held in, but the screws are messed up so it's not tight. Just need to replace them and it should be good. (Picture below.)

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- Got a key made for the trunk lock I picked up so that's good to go now. (Photo 1.) At least for now I'm using the clip I pulled out of my Clipper a few days ago, derusted, and painted.

- As I mentioned before, the trim that pops into the trunk has little foam pieces presumably for waterproofing. I didn't have all the clips (11 total) so I used some new ones I bought, just with some packing foam. (Photo 2, 3.) Due to denting, the rear of the trim did not sit flush with the car so I used the one screw-on clip there. Instead of ordering tons of rubber washers off McMaster, I just bought some Gasket Rubber from the plumbing aisle of Home Depot so I can just just & drill/punch to size as I need it. (Photo 4.) Did I overthink it? Most likely, but that's the fun of it!

Anyway, nice to have another piece on the car. (Photo 5.)

- Also got the passenger side comb piece on and wired in. Boy are those a struggle!

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Looks great and coming along nicely! For the seals on the threaded studs, I bought a bag of nuts with the rubber seal built-in which is what Packard used for things like this. I think I bought them on Amazon.com although I'm not sure but in any event they were cheap!

Yeah I didn't need that many and didn't want a ton of extras so I just decided to go the custom route.

As a side note, someone Bondo'd over most of the mounting holes for both the front turn signals and rocker trim. I have a comparison pic for the turn signal but getting the rocker trim holes back will be annoying. Hopefully with a magnet, and with a piece I have that has rust stains, I can figure it out eventually.

Good news, I got the title and registration in the mail on Tuesday. I got the front turn signals attached too, so we are officially street legal

Whenever they pained the car, they painted and/or bondo'd over the turn signal holes, so I only have them in place with 1 screw + speed nut for the time being. I want to get the Reynolds wrap nice and the trim, and have that on, before I pilot the rest of the holes.

Hopefully this week I'll get an oil change and new tires on it. Maybe will drop it off Monday evening.

Plus I got the air/heat cable repaired and installed, valve repaired, and flex tube installed on both sides. Now both of the heaters are working, very important for PA driving!
https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=26133

As a side note, the thermal valve assembly is missing from my car. Not really a problem, but I may pull the one off my clipper and install it on here sometime. Any ideas why they would not have installed it? Presumably it was leaking?

On a 400 the heater should have been standard so if you have the core and inside plenum then you would have had the valve. As you said, chances are it was leaking and someone removed it intending to repair -- or I suppose if the car had been a long sitting or non running car the valve might have been removed and donated to another just as your Clipper might be doing. The standard valves should be easily found although cars with factory AC used the same brand and type valve but with a different tube to body orientation. Those are a bit harder to come by.

This is the factory A/C type so be sure it’s NOT this type if you buy a replacement anywhere..

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Took the 400 out to the fanciest restaurant in the USA... Dairy Queen

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