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Wednesday 4th February 2015

In my post of 8th January I failed to mention that on the return trip from Wade's on the Central Coast to the Coupe's temporary accommodation in my daughters garage in the Southern Highlands at Fitzroy Falls, I stopped to refuel after about 20kms. And after refueling and restarting the Coupe there was a terrific bang from the engine compartment! The engine still appeared to be running smoothly and, as far as I could see, there wasn't a rod sticking through the block but there was a terrific racket coming from the front of the engine. In the circumstances I put the noise down to the water pump, because it had been "noisy" since I installed it back in July, and thought that something catastrophic had happened to it internally. With that thought in mind I decided to "risk" driving the remainder of the way to Fitzroy Falls, about 230 kms. With one eye on the temperature gauge, because of my water pump diagnosis, completed the trip back without any problems although the racket coming from the engine compartment, even though it sometimes quietened down, was very distracting.

Rang Wade and arranged that I'd take the water pump, that I'd taken out in July, down to the workshop and he'd pick it up from there next time he called in. The workshop being approximately halfway between our respective domiciles. Wade is going to rebuild that waterpump with a modern seal and bearing and I imagine he'll drop it into the workshop so I can pick it up from there when it's ready.

With all good on the water pump front, in the meantime, I was searching the internet for 6V bulbs to replace the burnt out ones in the Coupes indicators. Finally found some in the UK and after they arrived, went out to my daughters place on the 29th January to put them in and check that all were now working. But before doing that I wanted to start the Coupe and recheck the noise. Easier said than done, the Optima battery was dead flat! Still, put the bulbs in, to be checked at a later date. Took the Optima home, and a 6V battery charger that was in the Coupes boot(trunk), to recharge it and try again another day. Also put out a call to Noel for a new Optima, if he had one, and he did! And arranged that he'd bring it to the Packard run we were having on Sunday.

That brings us to today, after picking the granddaughters up from school took them, the recharged Optima and the new Optima to their and the Coupes home. Tried the recharged Optima but it was very sluggish, barely turning the engine over. Swapped in the new Optima and the Coupe easily came to life. Still an unholy rattling, scraping sound from the front of the engine. Hand on water pump, no undue vibrations, hand on generator, maybe it was the source of the noise and that's why the battery was flat, also no undue vibrations. Then notice, because I now have a torch(flashlight) in hand, that there's something between the crankshaft pulley and the front crossmember. But what is it? Why the harmonic balancer of course! Now I knew what caused the noise, sure was a catastrophic failure! And there had been a similar occurrence happen with Old Blue, see this post from a while back. But I didn't use a stick to temporarily ease the problem because I didn't know I had that problem.

Now, instead of a water pump, I need to find a good harmonic balancer, and that'll likely be the easy part. Removing the old balancer and installing the replacement will be the hard part. But it has to be done, after all, there's a National Rally in about 6&1/2 weeks time which the Coupe intends to attend!

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Packard people are great! Go to bed after posting about my problem and wake up, make that couldn't sleep, at 4:00am to find a couple of email offers of balancers(dampers). One from the US the other from Oz. I'll be chasing up the Oz offer at a more civilized hour.
Pepe!

Glad one of your mates came through and glad the problem was simple.

Quote:

X2 and I can't believe how lucky you were that thing didn't tear up your radiator.

I thought the same thing regarding the radiator!

If time is not an issue most of these balancers can be rebuilt.

Jim Chrisner, Western Pennsylvania

Jim,

That's my "fall back" position. There's a rebuilder in Sydney, or rather a fabricator because he makes them from scratch, and Wade had one made for Big Red a few years back. But first we'll see what Pepe comes up with.

Wednesday 18th February 2015

Unfortunately Pepe was unable to come up with a balancer/pulley for the Coupe and referred me to JohnK but he too came up empty. Then, after a phone call or two with Peter Packard last Wednesday a balancer/pulley arrived by courier on Friday causing my wife Kath to almost fall through the floor under it's unexpected weight! At our daughters house today, where the Coupe is garaged while waiting for one to be built here, removed part of the damaged balancer/pulley, the balancer part. That was after loosening the generator, removing the fan belt and also removing the left side stay betwen the firewall and the fixed bonnet(hood) side panel. Why do that? Because this short, fat, old Aussie had great difficulty reaching over the edge to the balancer/pulley and had to lie along the top of the mudguard(fender in US, wing in UK).The pulley removal wasn't so easy, in fact it's stalled because I dropped the 1" AF socket and couldn't find it. But I did later at home, there it was in a photo, hiding in not so plain sight under the pulley! Will return in the next few days to retrieve the socket and finish the task. Anyway, frustrated by the lost socket saga, instead removed the badge bar from the front bumper. Will update it with a couple of different badges in time for our 16th National Packard Rally next month.

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Wednesday 25th February 2015

Incremental progress yesterday and today.

Yesterday, cleaned and painted the replacement balancer/pulley from Peter Packard, and paintline marked TDC and 6 degrees before TDC on it. Had a wildlife encounter in preparing to clean up the balancer. Seeing I don't have a garage most of my "stuff" is stored at my daughters with the Coupe. But needed something to rest the balancer on while I cleaned and painted it. So assembled an outdoor plastic table as a workbench, the kind of table with removable plastic legs. Put the first in, no worries, Second leg felt heavy but, having had a previous experience many years ago when a blue tongue lizard fell out of pipe and onto my foot scaring the @#%&! out of me I was very careful in handling the table leg. And sure enough, out slid a blue tongue! Fortunately the other legs contained no wildlife, last seen, the blue tongue was heading across the lawn, no doubt looking for his next meal of snails, we've got plenty! Of course none of that would have happened if my wife had let me use the kitchen bench for the clean up and painting.

Today removed the fan and fan pulley for a little easier access. Also found the 1" socket, hiding under the pulley, and removed the bolt holding the pulley to the crankshaft. Following some advice, did this by attaching the socket and handle to the bolt head with the handle resting on the left side of the front crossmember. Then, gently used the starter button, that is, by pressing it for a only a few turns of the engine. That loosened the bolt enough so that it turned by hand, or more correctly fingers. One step forward. But, how to get the pulley and hub off the crankshaft? Didn't have a pry bar that would fit behind the pulley to enable it to be levered off the crankshaft using the front motor mount as a fulcrum. Realise this will probably damage the pulley but, in the confined space available, I doubt I have any other options. Some local shopping at hardware and auto parts stores didn't turn up a pry bar. But seeing I'm heading to the big smoke, Sydney, on Friday I'm sure I'll get one there.

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Saturday 28th February 2015

Yesterday picked up a 60cm(24") tyre(tire) lever from SuperCheap Auto, thought it would do the trick in allowing me to lever the pulley and hub off the Coupe's crankshaft. Wrong! Today found that there's so much flex or spring in the tyre lever most of the force seemed to be spent elsewhere. But what to do to get the recalcitrant pulley off? Being at my daughters looked around for a "suitable" rigid lever and found one in the form of a fencing bar or crow bar I'd lent my son-in-law. Should get plenty of leverage with that! Sure did! By levering then bumping the starter motor with the button on the solenoid turning the crank a little at a time the pulley and hub soon started to move forward.

But when it came off I found out the true results of my brute force and ignorance approach, a broken hub! Too late now, so carried on to get the replacement pulley and balancer on the crankshaft snout. Before doing that though, compared the old and new pulleys to ensure they were the same. And they were, with the markings on both having the same offset for TDC and 6 degrees before TDC in relation to the keyway location as well as the shape and pulley size being right.

Then came the hard part, getting the pulley and balancer on. It's one thing getting it off but gravity, a heavy part held at arms length at full stretch into the depths of a '41 120 engine compartment, lying along a mudguard(fender), trying to lift it about 1/2" with one hand and slide it onto the crankshaft snout is another thing altogether! But I wasn't going to let it beat me, after all I'd watched Wade tackle these same awkward situations and come out on top many times. And what did he use to do that? Why perseverance, so that's what I applied! Many, many, many attempts later finally got it to start on the snout, what a relief. Then it was a matter of wriggling it until I felt the keyway engage with the key in the snout, good. A little more wriggling and some pushing and it started to slide on, but only went so far. Then couldn't get the retaining bolt and washers past the pulley to try and start the nut to push on the pulley and balancer. Couldn't use the fencing bar, just wasn't right for that job. But the tyre lever was. Again bumping the starter, and using the lever against the bottom of the radiator cradle got the pulley and balancer on far enough after many attempts to finally get the bolt to start. Pulled the pulley and balancer on the rest of the way using a socket and ratchet finished off with a length of pipe over a socket bar for reasonable leverage.
Then started the Coupe up, no troubles there with the pulley and balancer appearing to be rotating nicely. But....and it's a big BUT....I now had another problem. There was coolant leaking from the bottom of the radiator. Not much, but enough! Looks like the Coupe wont be going to the National Rally, I just don't have the facilities(my own garage yet) to be able to pull the front clip off to remove the radiator.
Anyone have a loan Packard I could use at the Rally?

As an aside, on my way home yesterday, dropped into see Andrew with the '40 160 parts I'd picked up last month. Also called into Camden County Customs to see TJ and catch up with what he was up to. One of the cars in his shop was a '53 Caddy which had been converted into a pickup or ute back in '53 from a brand new Caddy. The story is the new Caddy was in a warehouse in California when something fell on it crushing part of the roof. The guy who bought the wreck was a shipwright who welded up the rear doors, used the rear window and roof section for the back of the cabin and fabricated a wooden bed. TJ has made a complete new sheetmetal bed as well as fixing all the other body areas needing attention. Looks good, but no photos, although TJ may have some on the Facebook page.

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