Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Hello friends
I am having difficulty installing the long springs for the hood release levers. Can any one give me a tip on how to do it
Thanks

If you mean this spring, they are a pain and I spent some time having just as much fun as you apparently have had.

It has been a lot of years since I did mine and after the fact realized I probably did it the hard way. As I recall I finally got fed up and found a piece of steel rod that was longer but narrower than the latch pin. Drilled a hole in a scrap piece of wood the size of the rod to stick the rod in and keep it in place. Used another scrap of wood and drilled a slightly larger hole the rod could slide thru. Put some lengths of twine inside the expanded spring and put the spring and twine over the rod. Used the board with the larger hole to compress the spring and then pulled the twine tight and tied it to keep the spring compressed. I used clamps to keep spring compressed while tying the twine. There is not a lot of space between the stock pin and spring inside diameter so don't use anything much heavier than twine.

After preparing the wood and rod it hit me later on that I could have used all thread or a long bolt and probably have done the same thing using washers and nuts to compress the spring. A perfect example of why do something the easy way if a harder way can be found.

However you compress the spring, once it is compressed and tied put the spring in the space and then run the stock pin thru to hold everything together. Once it is together then cut the twine and the spring should pop into place.

I would almost bet Packard had some kind of tool along the lines of a valve spring compressor that would both hold and compress the spring. Probably had a handle so they could just slide the compressed spring in place and push the pin down.

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