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Monday 23rd November 2009
Quote:
Steve,

I believe the brakes were done about 12 years ago early in it's restoration. It was a number of years before the restoration was completed so the car was sitting for a while. Don't know what fluid was used previously but DOT5 Silicone will be used exclusively when it goes back together. And I found this when I googled "Silicone Brake Fluid DOT5"http://www.motorcycleproject.com/motorcycle/text/cows-brakefluid.html which says in part "On the practical side, beware that glycol and silicone brake fluids are hugely incompatible with each other. Mixing even small amounts will create a sludge that looks amazingly like Italian salad dressing and is about as effective as a brake fluid -- meaning, not." Looks like both types of fluid were used resulting in the salad dressing effect! The wheel bearings will all be lubed with Penrite High Temperature Grease.http://www.penriteoil.com.au/pis_pdfs/PI_High%20temperature%20grease.pdf A picture of which can be seen herehttps://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2179&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=149

Anyway, after my sojourn to the Gold Coast over the weekend, returned to the workshop this morning to find Wade disassembling Big Red's fuel/vacuum pump. Wade had pulled it apart to check on it's condition and was disconcerted to find oil in the vacuum section of the pump but couldn't see anyway apparent how the oil was in that section of the pump. Irrespective, Wade had a pump rebuild kit and that was what he was going to do anyway. Wade had also rebuilt the radiohead for Big Red over the weekend and that went back in the instrument panel which then went back in the dash. Also on Friday, while I was away, Wayne had delivered the package from Eric to the workshop.Quote: So of course next step was to open the package. Here it became exciting because it was a little like a lucky dip, because it had been some time since I bought the parts on eBay. There were the things I'd remembered, the distributor and 20's hubcaps. And the things I didn't or only had vague memories of, the glovebox lock and keys, the 40's bonnet(hood) ornament, the solenoid with box and the klaxon horn. And Eric's surprises, at least I think they are both from Eric, the cut-off brake/clutch pedal and the old oxy cutting torch! I won't email you Eric, instead you can enlighten all of us as to what they are all about! I could imagine the brake pedal is to be chromed and mounted on the study wall, it will when I get a study, as a memento of the Speedster build, but the oxy torch???????????

However after that I picked up my sister up from the airport because she flew back from the Gold Coast today. On the way out Wade said he'd just had a phonecall to tell him the Tillotson carb for the 110 was ready and I was able to pick it up on the way back from the airport. Among other things turns out the accelerator pump needed replacement, a fair bit of corrosion needing to be cleaned out, the needle and seat were replaced and the bolts holding the cast iron base to the alloy body were also replaced with screws, it being an invitation to disaster to leave the bolts there. During my absence Harvey called in to the workshop to pick up the parts for the 120 engine rebuild he's doing for his boss Vince. Two other packages from Max arrived this morning, so after Wade removed the thermostat and retainer and the rubber bump stops for the 110, Harvey was able to collect all three packages to proceed with the rebuild.

Back at the workshop Wade was finishing off Big Red's fuel pump so I started making some MBM gaskets for the 120's rear axles and also cleaned the rear axle hubs on the 120. So once the brake bits for the 120 come back and he rest of the new bearings arrive, some were picked up By Wade on Friday, it'll be put back together. While I was finishing the gaskets Wade was mounting the rebuilt Tillotson on the 110. Started her up and aside from a leak where the fuel line connects to the carb, an external leak, it ran well, and no other leaks! A re-adjustment of the throttle linkage to give full travel and cleaning and new oil in the air filter were also required. To finish off the 110 tomorrow we'll take her for a test drive, re-torque the head, remove the thermostat housing to add the new thermostat and retainer and Wade is also going to refit the shutterstat because JJ Smiths have installed it incorrectly, instead of opening the shutters when it gets hotter it's trying to close them! My previous false statement of......Quote:...... should be completely and utterly disregarded!

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I wondered where I put that torch!!!

Actually, it was meant to be in there, as that is a very personal item....

Mal, I found a neat tool for cutting circular gaskets. It is a compass, but instead of having a pencil at one end it has a blade. You can cut holes or round shaped gaskets. It also has a pad where the pointed end can sit so there is no pin hole mark in the middle if you are making a round gasket. I got it at HobbyTown, a hobby supply store here in the States. The price was about $5US, and comes with extra cutting blades. Enjoying your blog, keep up the good work.

Tuesday 24th November 2009

Arrived at the workshop to find that although Wade had arrived he wasn't there. Turns out he was around at Brooker's Brakes picking up the brakes parts for Noel's 120 from Col. In Wades absence I went up on the roof of the office to take some pic's of the workshop, the office being built inside the workshop and its roof is used for storage purposes. On Wade's return we were off to do a pickup run, Big Red's block was ready, the oil cooler "fix" also for Big Red was ready and the rest of the wheel bearings for Noel's '39 120 had come in. First stop was Wilkins Performance Engineshttp://www.wilkinsengineering.com.au/index.html to pick up Big Red's block, pistons and valves. While there, saw that Harvey had dropped off the engine parts he'd picked up yesterday from Wade, for the '39 120 and he's rebuilding for his boss.

As we were leaving there Wade rang Harvey because Harvey might have some 120 brake parts, like a front brake shoe spring to replace the "bodgie" one currently on the left front and some anti-rattle springs for the rear brakes, neither of which had a spring just a piece of rubber! Turns out Harvey was just heading home for morning tea and as we were about 5 minutes away we put our orders in too. Thanks to Carol, Harvey's wife, Wade had coffee while I had tea both accompanied by slices of Carol's home baked cake, delicious. Harvey had a brake shoe spring but only one anti-rattle spring, so besides having full stomachs we didn't leave empty handed. And Harvey had called me last night and asked me to purchase an accelerator pedal for the '39 120 he's working on, so it's been ordered and should be here in a couple of weeks. He also asked me to order him a new grill for his '40 Willys which I'll be doing early tomorrow morning Oz time to align with business hours in the US.

Next was Pirtek, where we picked up the re-engineered oil cooler for Big Red. O_D, before you go blind, please skip to the last sentence of this paragraph. The oil cooler in Big Red was leaking and to fix this Wade had removed the finned cooling "block" from the mounting plate and had a U-shaped tube fabricated by Pirtek to take it's place. The other stop was ABC Bearings where the balance of the wheel bearings for Noel's 120 had arrived from ABC's warehouse.

Back at the workshop, after unloading the ute, it was into getting the brakes and bearings back onto Noel's '39 120. Noel has a wedding to do in a couple of weeks time and with all the parts now here his car has become the priority. Front brakes re-assembled, bearing cups installed in hubs, new wheel bearings cleaned and packed with grease and brake drums installed. At the rear the new wheel bearing were cleaned and pressed onto the axles and inserted for a trial fit. Looks OK, but end play will be checked in detail tomorrow and the rest of the rear brakes re-assembly done. Then it'll be onto re-installing the master cylinder, Wade's leaving this until after we flush out the "Italian salad dressing" and whatever other crud might be in the brake lines, probably got nothing at all to do with facing putting the M/C back into place!

Quote:John,

Thanks for the gasket cutting tool tip. Glad you're enjoying reading about what's happening, it's even better at this end of things!

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Wednesday 25th November 2009

Wade was checking the end play of Noel's '39 rear axles when I arrived and they checked out OK. Then it was into cleaning out all the brake lines. Because most of the brake fluid had already leaked out, while being driven or escaped when dismantledfrom the cylinders, there wasn't a great deal left to flush out. However all was flushed and blown out with compressed air and is now clean.

Next I was set to work installing the backing plates, outer axle oil seal & housing and retaining plate and this is where the MbM gaskets from the other day came into play. Wade doesn't enjoy the very sticky gasket cement at all and that's why apprentice Mal was selected for the job. Suffice to say I'm only too happy to help and the more practice I get the better I should be. Did the left side first, only problem being stripping one of the blacking plate retaining bolts! As a temporary fix a nut and bolt were purloined from the right side to finish that part of the job. To do the right side we now needed another blacking plate retaining nut & bolt. Looking around spied the brake drums and brakes from the Post-War diff obtained from Wayne back in January. And what do you know, even though there are only 4 x bolts & nuts they are the same as the 6 x bolts & nuts on the '39. Also discovered the hand brake anti-rattle springs were there as well so these were likewise appropriated. While I was installing the right side MbM gaskets, backing plate, oil seal & housing and retaining, this time without stripping anything... pheeeew, Wade was installing the left side wheel cylinder and hand brake cable to the backing plate. Together, we then installed the shoes, adjuster, various springs and re-connected the brake line, then the key and brake drum were re-installed. The axle nut was only nipped up at this stage and will be properly tightened once the '39 is back on the ground. We then turned to the right side and did likewise there. Now came the part that Wade was dreading, if I can use that word, re-installing the re-built master cylinder. And strange to say after the difficulties experienced in removing it putting it back in wasn't too bad at all. Of course, it did entail some undercar work on both Wade and my parts, but the first nut and then the first bolt went in very easily in comparison to having to fight them all the way in getting them out. The next large nut was more of a problem because of the tight confines restricting spanner access and swing. Wade was very pleased that this aspect of the job went so well. Then back to the front, does that make sense, and connected both flexible brake hoses and that ended things for today. Tomorrow the system will be filled with fluid, bled, brakes adjusted, wheels re-installed, axles nuts tightened and split-pinned and taken for a test drive.

During the course of the day there were a couple of visitors. The first being Noel's good friend Tony who did most of the body work on the '39. Tony was there to pick up a '41 sidemount cover Noel had left for Tony to do some work on for him. Only a little later Noel also arrived, fortunately on both occasions Wade and I had our heads under the '39 when the guys arrived so at least it looked like we were working! Noel had dropped in to see how things were progressing and I believe the answer is......well. Later on a suasage sizzle was put on for lunch and we broke for that of course. After lunch Wade and I walked up to Sam and Ivan's workshop, not to get any machining done but to look over the tools and equipment being auctioned on-line tonight. The business together with the automatic transmission repair business next door have been closed. Sam was there supervising the removal of hundreds of torque converters which had been sold as a job lot for $1,200, and as Sam said, he could pick out 10 and get $1,000 just like that but it's outside his control! Wade really wanted to have a look at the 4 post lifts being sold in the auto trans business, there were 6 of them up for auction. After viewing the 6 of them and dismissing those with hydraulic leaks he determined that Lots #11 & #12 looked reasonable, although in saying that they were all quite old. I was then tasked with bidding on one with an upper limit of about $550. However when I returned home and accessed the auction site I soon discovered that government taxes and sellers commission would push the final price up considerably. So I limited my bidding to $460 on the first one and was outbid straight away, one gone. And on the other, I was the high bidder until the last few seconds then got sniped!
Bottom line, as I said to Wade in my email, we'll still be spending plenty of time on the workshop floor!

EDIT - One more matter, from yesterday - Quote: So, getting up at 4:30am I rang the US for the Willys grill only to get a recorded voice telling me they were in Florida for the Daytona Turkey Rod Run and wouldn't be back until 3rd of December. I hope Harvey appreciates all that I'm doing for him!

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Thursday 26th November 2009

Wade was just starting to adjust the brakes on Noel's '39 when I arrived at the workshop. Leaving Wade to that I set off on a mission to pick up some Dot5 Silicone brake fluid with which to fill the brake system. But when I returned, although Wade had finished adjusting all four wheels, there was another problem. After doing the front brakes, Wade had turned to the rears but couldn't turn the brake drum freely because the '39 was in gear. All Wade did Noel, and he'll swear this is true, is move the gear lever out of second! What happened? Well, the linkage broke, see pic. It had obviously been broken before because it had another piece of rod welded on one side to repair the old break! At this point Wade went round to see Col, the brake guy, about the bill for Noel's brakes and to get one of the guys there to weld up the broken shift linkage rod. While Wade was away I cleaned up Noel's spark plugs in the blasting cabinet. And when Wade returned it was without either the bill or the linkage rod. Col hasn't done the bill and the guy who does the welding was out of the shop.

Sparkplugs were re-gapped and re-installed and then Wade thought he'd better check the points too. Bad move! Opening the distributor cap revealed something you may not know. What? That there's a gold mine in there. What????? It's not? It was actually brass filings from something amiss in there? How disappointing! And I thought, instead of just throwing money at a Packard, there was finally going to be a return in the form of precious metal! Excitement over, returned to earth, and the distributor was removed to permit examination and corrective action to be taken. With the '39 up on jackstands it's not easy to do this as the reach required becomes very awkward. But Wade by his nature persisted and out it came. Disassembled on the bench and in the vice and nothing obvious as to where the "fool's gold" originated from. While the distributor was out the vacuum advance was removed, the plate removed and all parts cleaned. The centrifugal advance mechanism was found to be stuck, but following adjustment to ease the spring tension on one side and with some necessary lubrication is working well now. The other major problem was the points, it was a wonder it ran at all, being deeply pitted and the rubbing block severely worn. Wade came up with an old set of points from Old Blue which fitted and could be adjusted. Back together and, once fuel was back up to the carb, fired right. Next was replacing the fan belt. Wade had commented when the '39 came in a couple of weeks ago that it wasn't right being both too deep and too wide for the pulleys. Whereupon Noel said he had a spare and dropped it in yesterday when he came over. It was just difficult to get the generator to move because it didn't have the right bolts holding it on, probably metric, but once that was solved the old belt slipped off and the new belt put on fairly easily.

After all that finally got to do what I had expected to be done much earlier, bleeding the brakes. So there I sat for about 20 minutes behind the wheel of Noel's '39 and that was before we got started! Turns out the brake bleed fittings were now also an odd size, so Wade was running around trying to find a spanner to fit. That sorted out, it was then into a routine of me gently flooring the brake pedal, holding and slowly releasing to Wade's commands as he bled air then fluid, corner by corner. All done and all looked well until it was noticed fluid was leaking from the rear copper gasket at the union at the front of the master cylinder. Once more Wade tramped around to see Col, and this time I accompanied him. Col suggested that the thread for the fitting may be bottoming and therefore not applying enough tension to give an effective seal. So armed with that advice we returned and Wade inserted the hollow threaded bolt as far as he could into the master cylinder and compared the union with the gap remaining. Looked marginal, but by this time I had to leave, so I dropped Wade around at Col's to seek further advice and also, I expect, Noel's bill and the repaired gear linkage rod. I won't know the details of what transpired until late Monday morning because it's off to see the granddaughters tomorrow and Monday morning it's off to donate at the Bloodbank.

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Again very interesting developments Mal,makes me wish to be there.
Valvoline grease...I thouth that everyone I know uses this these days, but no need to say sorry , I think people should know the differences between the new and old greases and lubricants. At least so I have understood it.

Actually Mal,can you tell me this: how many pre-war cars have been preserved in australia and what kind of cars are most common?

Can you tell me the markings on the spark plugs, I thouth
ZIS and Packard had similar spark blugs but seems, its not
so.Did Packard originally use Champion spark plugs???

Mal, you guys continue to amaze me. Popping in here, there and anywhere finding people who know about & willing to work on 70 year old items off American cars--even more amazing having or finding parts for them. Its hard enough to do that over here on cars half that age unless they're Ford or Chevy--let alone Packards.

Friday 27th November 2009

Didn't get to the workshop but did ring Peter(Rhino Linings) about progress on the running boards. Result being that I'll go his his workshop tomorrow morning and by lunch time should have a pair of rhino'd boards to bring home. And to answer some questions......

Quote: Steve,

Don't know how many pre-war cars are preserved in Australia but it would be many many thousands. As an example, for the Packard Club here, approx 180 members have about 400 Packards, and those are just the ones listed, some have more not officially recorded. As to what cars are most common. I'd think it would probably be the cars that were most common at that time with Fords, especially Model T & A's, leading the way.

As to the spark plugs, they are 10mm Autolite 3136's. I'll leave it to the more knowledgeable to respond whether Champions were OEM for Packards.

Quote:Howard,

Most of the guys mentioned have been "found" by Wade over the last 20 years or see he's been fooling around with Packards. Besides that there is a very free exchange of information between members of the old car movement in general, and the Packard club in particular, including various automotive services where the mention of Packard doesn't result in the usual blank stare and slack jaw. There have also been links to Packard guys in the US for years including access to the major vendors there and annual expeditions to Hershey which have helped many a Packard club member here to complete a restoration. The Packard club here also has a stock of new and used parts, but most of the "good things" are gone by now. As well, there is often the "mate rate". If your friend is after a part and you have a spare you pass it on, and somewhere down the track when you need a part someone else will come to your rescue with the necessary part. Simplified somewhat, but you get the idea. And of course now there's the internet and such entities as eBay, and not forgetting PackardInfo, because of these technological advances the world has shrunk considerably.

Saturday 28th November 2009

Title of the blog is somewhat misleading today because I was at Peter's Workshop this morning, not Wade's! Peter is the guy who Rhinoed the running boards and he said yesterday if I came over this morning I'd be taking the boards home by lunch time. Certainly I've taken them home but there's still a lot of work to do to till they are acceptable from my viewpoint. Peter had filled, what seems like, hundreds of holes with black urethane. Now it was my job, after the urethane had set/cured, to sand it back to achieve a smooth surface. But first had to remove the milky looking skin from the urethane which took about 3/4 of an hour for both boards. Then, using 80 paper to start with, sanding of the urethaned holes commenced. A slow process and because the urethane is softer than the Rhino it tends to peel rather than wear away through the rubbing action. After about an hour and a half of this and covering less than the surface of one board with still a whole lot of work to do I gave rubbing back the urethane away. Instead I concentrated on rubbing back the orange peeled rhino surfaces on the front and side of the left board. Did this for about 15 minutes and was gratified to see that promising results were emerging. And because I can do the same thing at home called it quits for the day and have brought the running boards home to work on in my own time in my own garage. I can see many, many hours of effort going into this to smooth the Rhinoed finish. And this from a post on another forum in response to a question of mine "started with coarse paper - like 80 grit on the really rippled surface and worked our way down to 400 I think, maybe 600" so there'll be a number of grades of paper utilised until an acceptable level of finish is achieved. Saw a couple of interesting cars too, see pic's.

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