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We have removed another of Fred and Dan Kanter's cars from long term storage. This 1955 Patrician was purchased by Fred and Dan by trade of a Caribbean over 40 years ago and was last on the road in 1974. Both Fred and Dan decide to remove this one and get it up and running. Since removal from the back portion of our museum the fuel system has been gone through with the fuel lines being cleaned, a new reproduction fuel tank and sender installed and the carburetor cleaned. With a fresh oil change the Patrician fired right up and ran smoothly and quietly. Once warm the engine developed a coolant leak where the thermostat housing meets the cross over. The housing gasket was replaced and the engine was in good working order.

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From the engine and fuel system we moved our attentions to the brake system. Inspection of the wheel cylinders determined that replacing was necessary. So the lines were flushed and new wheel cylinders installed. We bled the system and left the BTV Power Unit intact as to see if 40 years of hibernation would have any affect. The unit worked and the system was bled. But upon a test drive the hydraulic section worked flawlessly but the power assist did not as the pedal was rock hard. At that point the car was driven up street to our restoration shop to have the BTV removed and repaired.

We removed the BTV from the car and upon initial disassembly we found the unit to be in over all good condition. We did find that rust and debris had built up between the leather piston seal and the wall of the vacuum can during the last 40 years of sitting. The build up between created a gap causing loss of vacuum leading to the hard pedal. The seal at the back of the hydraulic section was starting to exhibit signs of leaking so we elected to rebuild the entire unit. All the seals and gaskets were replaced and included a new stainless steel piston as well. Since rebuild the unit has been tested and reinstalled in the Patrician and is operating flawlessly.


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what about the tires? Would they need replaced after 42 years?
John

We decide on tire replacement car by car. We had an Avanti in heated storage for 30 years and we had replaced the tires with brand new Pirellis only 500 miles before storage.

One tire had a bubble in the sidewall so we put on the spare and headed for the Pirelli dealer about 4 miles away.
BOOM! went a tire so I changed to the spare, BOOM! went the spare. All 5 were replaced, obviously Pirelli had some quality problems back then.

Our '52 Packard Patrician factory show car has all 5 original tires with 25,000 miles on them and a good amount of tread. We inspect them before driving it and last summer drove it (max 50 mph) to the National in Reading without a tire incident.

The Patrician above has LeMans tires made by Seiberling which we used to sell in the 70's, some of our other cars do also. These were inspected and passed, other of our cars have been driven after long storage on these without incident so no, they won't be replaced.

I don't know how much an issue heat is when the climate is also humid but out here where it is hot and dry, cracking and general rubber deterioration is a big issue. Many service and inspection places go thru and note the cracking condition of tires. Obviously they want to sell tires but most of the chain tire places out here have a standard of around 10 years before they will not repair or remount a tire. I ran into this when I wanted to get new tires for one car and have the old ones moved to a spare set of wheels for use as roll arounds. The chains said they could or would not remount the old ones.