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One of the surprises after putting the front clip back together was the bent bumper arm on the driver side. I took it off and bent it back using my hydraulic press and some steel blocks and pipe as forms. The top arm in the picture was the bent one.

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I never questioned the front fender parking lights that came with the car until I started trying to repair them and get some fender mounting pads. They turned out to be parking lights from a 1937-38 Buick Special 40. Fortunately, all Packard parking lights for 1940 are the same and I had an extra set from one of my junior 1940 cars. The Buick parking lights found a new home for $137 on E-Bay.

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One of the more complex things I did on the car was replace the thermostatically controlled front grill louvres that came on the Super 8's. The originals were completely rusted through in some places and I had some replated ones I bought years ago (for way too much money!). In order to replace the louvres you have to remove the front clip and then remove the grill frame from the clip. I soaked all the bolts and screws for weeks with my favorite 50:50 ATF:Acetone penetrant solution. Then you have to undo the thermostat linkage and remove the top louvre mount from the frame. After that grind off the tops the brass rivets on the top of the frame. Take lots of pictures and number the old louvres left and right from inside to outside. They fit in the frame in a particular order and have different lengths depending on their location. Then you need to order 14 new rivets from Max Merritt (best price I found) and a Hanson HT-178 hand rivet clincher tool for 5/32 dia rivets (Amazon or from Hanson directly). Somehow it all needs to be held together while setting the rivets and then you need to feed the ends of all the louvres into the holes in the bottom of the grill frame. It can be done but it will test your patience!

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One crazy detail I learned when installing new headlight wiring harness' is that the hollow headlight mounting bolt only allows you to pass a maximum of three wires with practically no ends on them. The headlight is installed on the fender first using the flat washer, lock nut and then the nut, then you push the headlight wiring harness through the hollow bolt and then you solder/attach on the headlight plugs! All I could do was put a couple wraps of harness tape on the wires going through the bolt - certainly not the loom cover.

Looks like a very nice Packard! The grille louvers on yours were many times better than those on my old 1901A which I never got around to fixing in the decades that I owned it. It was barely driveable anyway.

On the hollow bolts and with all the 1940 Packards that I've owned in the past, what I would do is to get each wire into and through it one at a time from inside the light housing, followed by the harness. Of course, that works only if the wires are very pliable and are far enough out of the harness!