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My Packard was originally purchase in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950 by my grandfather, at Packard Cleveland Inc. dealership for the total price of $2,695.35
see the sales order here
He passed away in 1961 and the car wasn't driven much after that for a few years. My mother drove it in the late 1960's,early 1970's until it stopped running in 1972, with 41,000 original miles. The car was
parked in the garage. Several attempts were made to get it running by myself as a kid, not really knowing what was wrong but learning anyway. All I remember was allot of gas smell, and allot of backfiring in
both directions. It always seemed that I was almost there. I never got it running, but occasionally kept trying.
In 1990 I decided that I could get it going given the knowledge of cars that I had learned.First,I found that I had taken the cylinder head off years ago, and that the block surface, and cylinder walls had
rusted. The crank was stuck. I soon learned that bringing this car home to fill in some time was never going to fit into my budget. I also noticed that even life in the garage did not treat the body very well,
as rust had eaten away the rockers and half the passenger quarter panel. I knew I was always going to completely restore it but now wasn't the time. I still wanted to get it running though. I thought that if I
could just totally disassemble the engine, clean it, and get it free again, I could make it run.
I took it out, took it apart, degreased and cleaned it. Further inspection revealed no problems with the bearings, or crankshaft. I decided to just buy standard size bearings and put it back together. The cam
looked ok to. The cylinder walls had seen some rust, but I just de-rusted with naval jelly, and honed them. I knew this wasn't a permanent fix but it was better than it was. I don't remember any bad marks,
scores, or ridges on the cylinder walls. I checked them for roundness and they weren't too bad.
During dis-assembly a few of the pistons were destroyed trying to get them out. I bought just the ones I needed, new rings, bearings and went with them.
The valve seats were the real problem. Again, the budget was low and machining, and/or installing valve seats was not going to happen this time around. I replaced a few bent valves, and "lapped" in the seats.
they actually came out pretty nice, there were some pits, but the seats seated nicely.
During dis-assembly I found the original problem, the timing chain had jumped. All the time I spent as a kid cranking that thing and now knowing there was NO WAY it was ever going to fire! I was able to pull
the chain off over the gears without sliding the gears off, now that's stretched.
This is something I would recognize in minutes now!! Oh well??
I put the engine back together, at basically factory specs with a new gasket set, stock size bearings, a few new valves, a few new pistons, and other misc.parts.
The engine looked great with a new coat of Packard green engine paint, from Bill Hirsch.
I cleaned and wire wheeled the engine bay, and sprayed with black rustoleum, looked pretty good. I re-installed the engine. I still needed to rebuild things like the carb, starter, generator. I basically got
everything back together, but never really tried to fire it up yet.
I now started to work on the body. I knew this was only a temporary fix, but I wanted it too look somewhat presentable. Every thing was done with tin snips, sheet metal, bondo, fiberglass matting, sheet metal
screws, and whatever else I could patch a hole with.
Using such crude methods and materials, it really didn't look that bad, just don't lay down on the ground and look underneath. I primed it, and painted it with the cheapest black automotive enamel I could find.
I ended up with drips, runs, sags, and sand marks that looked like I used a cinder block to do my final sanding. I put all the original chrome and stainless steel back on it.
From a distance it didn't look bad, but it was certainly was better than it was, and again , only temporary, until start and complete my other project, my 1949 Buick Super, www.49buick.com.
It was now roughly the year 1999 and I was just now getting back to firing up the engine for the first time. Nothing but trouble, backfiring, and flashbacks of when I was a kid. I soon, (this time) realized the
timing chain, YES, THE TIMING CHAIN, was out of sync. Winter was on it's way and I ran out of time to work on it.
As spring arrived it was now time to start the Buick project and again the Packard was shelved for now.
Now it was roughly 2003-2004, the Buick was deep into it's restoration and I had the urge to work on the Packard again. I fixed the timing issue, rebuilt the carb, AGAIN!!, rebuilt the fuel pump AGAIN!!!,
rebuilt the starter AGAIN!!!, and had the radiator re-cored. The engine started and ran pretty good. A compression check revealed satisfactory readings, I know it's in the valve seats, but overall the car runs
good. Success in my opinion for doing it on such a low budget.
Next I rebuilt the entire brake system, new lines, hardware and all new hydraulic components. Even the parking brake works well. I wanted to be as safe as I can if this is hitting the road. Next I installed a
new exhaust system using various parts from other vehicles and even a piece of the original.
I spent many hours tracing down electrical problems because the harness was very brittle. It took allot of time to make all the lights work consistently.
Finally, it is 2004 and it is back on the road, first time since 1972. The entire goal here was to have an old car to have fun with while the Buick is down because I knew it was going to be a 5 year plus
project. I cruised it around town every chance I had, and to our local car cruises on Saturday nights. I was actually kind of proud of the roughness to it. It turns allot of heads. I found little bugs here and
there but dealt with each one. After roughly 500-600 miles the clutch began to fail. Not this time, I put a new clutch in immediately.
It's January 2007 and she still runs pretty good. I bought a parts car a couple years ago and will actually start working on some of those parts first, the ones I will eventually put on this Packard, before I
disable the car for a good 5 years.
Thanks for visiting 50packard.com and please come back to check on it's progress.
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