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

Thank you to David Patla for suggesting an air chisel to remove the running board rubber.
One hour with the air chisel and 2 hours with my drill and a 3M paint removal stripping tool and the running board looked like this.
One more to go.

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Great Work, Keith. And to think I thought the only use for an air chisel was to vibrate a recalcitrant cylinder head loose from the block....

Glad it worked for you, I did mine last year using the air chisel and it also worked well.

That looks super clean!

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Interesting. I have a head which has fused itself to . . . something. Anyway, it ain't coming off. I can try this one. Any details would be appreciated.

Definitely get details on air chisel use and placement. There have been some on the forum who used steel hand chisels or screwdrivers placed between the block and head to try and pry them apart. As I recall, in a couple of cases the head surfaces were gouged so badly there was not enough material that could safely be milled to get rid of the gouges and the heads had to be scrapped. Don't remember if the blocks had the same issue but consensus in the discussion was to always try other methods first to break them free. Lots of penetrating oil at the stud locations and modifying a plug to accept compressed air fittings to see if a blast of air in a few cylinders would break the head free of the studs. There was also a suggestion of filing notches in the end of very thin wall tubing and trying to work that down the studs to "saw" the corrosion free. If nothing was successful only then use hardwood or plastic wedges when prying.

sorry if my comment gets us too far offtrack.
Once upon a time when I was less patient, I grabbed the air chisel (dullest one from under the workbench) and a really hard block of wood and went at the sides of a cast iron cylinder head that was going to come off whether it wanted to or not. Based on liberal amounts of "solvents" I could tell at least which studs were free. I think I recall a few wooden wedges being asked to help, but I believe it was the percussion that ultimately released the bond. Either that or the block saw me eyeing a sledgehammer and a torch....

Thanks. I need to strike fear into it then.