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Meanwhile, MJG, i f it comes to yanking everything out, consider lightening your flywheel. I've heard a Packard maven report doing so to a 356. Wish i'd so done mine when for the sake of an effing $18 pilot bearing which squalling would wake the dead, we had to remove the transmission, so thought i'd replace the F-series Ford truck clutch so many 356 owners use, for a Packard pressure plate rebuilt using the original jig. As long as we were in the neighborhood. But, my flywheel's still stock weight. I bow to others' insight regarding this and don't want to give MJG a bum steer.

su8overdrive wrote:
MJG, the difference between the Packard and the Long-type Ford F-series truck clutch is the Packard pressure plate has adjustable fingers and softer springs, a Packard maven friend says smoother in operation. But my Ford F-series clutch/pressure plate were just fine and the only reason i replaced them was the transmission was out to replace the effing squalling pilot bearing. I could just as well've put the Ford clutch back in, and my lifelong Packard friend says both equally rugged, probably good for centuries, especially in a distance tour car, which is where 356 Packards on the 127" wb excel.

Am disgusted seeing vintage cars with modern drivetrains, but don't mind things like the Ford truck clutch and 55-amp, positive-ground, bolt-in, no butchering required alternator, Optima battery, synthetic motor oil, and modern black molybdenum/graphite grease; a Texaco or Chevron tech told us back in the late '70s, an order of eight times better than the orange fiber grease in common use from the '40s into the '70s. The black grease was originally developed for massive trucks in the hellish environment of huge stone quarries. Also use a NAPA Wix 87055 air filter which fits like it was made for our big air cleaner/carburetor silencers. Despite recent reports claiming oil bath as good or even a theoretical trace better, i'm sticking with the modern air filter.

Since you're building your overdrive 356 conv. as a distance runner, you might scout up a 3.92 rear axle from a non-overdrive car, or even a 3.54 cog from a '50 Ultramatic Custom Eight, unless you'll be spending much time in serious mountains with a carload of Sumo wrestlers. If your Lake Lanier, dating from three years before my boyhood Charlotte's Lake Norman and even larger--680 vs. 520 miles shoreline-- near the sourthern terminus of the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway, that'd be a mighty fine maiden cruise. Every bit as gorgeous as New England in autumn. Be glad you're not in undriveable Kaleefornyuh. Oft wish i'd never left my old greater NYC and earlier Charlotte. Huh, Stockholm Syndrome.

I'm just wondering if i'm okay continuing with the 1 1/4" head vibration damper bolt.