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Ive recently come across an old straight eight hearse. Its about 15 miles in the woods on an old jeep trail. Im just wondering if its worth pulling the motor and drivetrain out. Its on its side with trees growing all around and through it. Ive talked to some people and i believe its a 1947ish...but not 100% sure on the year. What i want to know is what information do I need to be able to go back up in the woods and pull numbers off the motor and/or body so I can then determine if its worth the investment. Thanks.

I guess it would depend on which engine and the condition. Some engines are fairly rare and worth saving and others are fairly common so not as valuable. Same with the drivetrain.

The motor number would be located approximately at "A" in the illustration if it is around the year you think. Later engines might have it more toward the rear above starter motor but still along the same horizontal plane. If you can find the number, then the particulars of year, size and construction are found herehttps://www.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/PackardEngineSerials.pdf. The format would be a letter followed by several numerals. There might possibly be an ending letter or symbol if the engine had some running changes.

The body and year series info should be around "B" although others can correct me if different on commercial cars. Later years would have body info on drivers front door jamb. The other numbers are not as valuable for identification since not many records are still existing-- although if you can get a complete set of all you find, one member is keeping a database

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Quote:G'day Travis,
to PackardInfo. Is the body too far gone to be salvageable? Or too far into the woods to be salvaged? Whichever way it is, pic's of both the hearse and the engine/body numbers would be of interest too.

And BigKev, our esteemed Webmaster, can no doubt remove the duplicate post?

EDIT - Looks like Kev has already struck and removed the other post while I was composing this one!

Well it's a little of both. There's a beaver dam in the way. I just managed my lifted ford ranger to it (dads jeep Cherokee lifted 4 inches had no problems, go jeep) we were going to extract the engine and drivetrain via backpack oxy/acetylene setup, winch it up a tree, back a shortbed truck under it and cart it out that way but if it's worth enough I'll make it come out in one piece ( about 12 - 15 small trees growing around and through). The cars also like 20 million feet long lol.



I might take a ride up this weekend and take some pics if the sun ever comes out

Quote:Travis,

I presume this to mean you'd haul the whole hearse out of the woods, is that right? Whether it's worth doing that would be dependent on the condition of the body. With that many trees in and around it it's obviously been there for some time. Because of that, rust could have made the body an unsalvageable proposition. That is unless someone really, really wants that hearse. The mechanicals(engine, drivetrain, suspension and steering) being more likely to be protected from the ravages of time and climate might be your better option for salvage especially if they are the rarer types referred to by HH56. The other parts which could be of value to salvage are trim pieces, switches, handles, knobs, etc.

Mal, I think he is saying the the car itself is literally "tree'd-in". They are just going to cut out the engine and transmission with a torch.

Be away that you are looking at over 1,000 lbs in weight for the drive train alone.

Quote:Well aware of that Kev, we've swung a few in and out of various Packards over the last few years. Know there's a lot of metal that's hard enough to handle under "controlled conditions" let alone out in the wild.

Mal, that comment about the weight was for Travis to let him know what to expect if he was going to try to winch it out of the chassis.

Sorry, have to try and keep the ego in check.

No worries mate.