Dave Mitchell
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Posts posted by Dave Mitchell
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Hi Raune, and welcome to the forum. Most Packard guys are good folks and will help you all they can, but you are right, not everyone will give up parts to a street rod project if they feel that someone who is doing an authentic restoration could use them; some people don't care, and as long as you pay their price they will sell you anything. In short, it may be a bit harder to find parts cheap for this project.
Since you already have an interest in Packards, I would encourage you to look at original (not modified) Packards before you make your decision. There are a lot of Packard owners who would love to show you their cars, take you for a ride and perhaps even let you drive a real Packard and then you can get a feel for why they have the reputation and even mystique that they do. This has everything to do with engineering, build quality, style, and they way they drive - the bulk of which will be significantly changed in a modified car. The other facet which I really enjoy in owning a vintage car is the history of it - whether it was owned by Joe the plumber or a Hollywood star, researching the previous life of your car can be fun and rewarding, and gives you a little extra to talk about when people ask you about your car. Even if you can't find out any of the history, you can sit it in and imagine life as it was when the car was new - the music, traffic, stores, fashion etc. To me, a car that is original is much more of a historical experience than one that has been modified. Yes, it is true, some rods may be worth more, but not many, and to me value isn't the deciding factor anyway. I love sedans, limos, formal sedans, and town cars as well as open cars and I like cars from the preteens to WWII and beyond, not just those that are valuable in terms of dollars. There are some great Packards out there which you can drive and enjoy without spending lots of money.
I don't know where you live, but I, or someone here can probably tell you where to find a Packard guy in your area, or you can join one of the Packard clubs or CCCA and look in the member roster. You will find that if you have an original car, you will be more welcome in the hobby clubs like CCCA, AACA, PAC, PI, etc. These are great social groups with activities that it is fun to participate in with an old car, where you can make lots of new friends.
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Hi John,
I would like to buy the 12 medallions from you. I will try to call you tomorrow, or you can email me. Thanks, Dave Mitchell packard12s@hotmail.com
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I have to admit that now that I have had the chance to drive and work on the first series Twin Six, I am very, very impressed with both the engineering and the build quality, it is easy to see where the Packard reputation was made.
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Right you are Dennis! Thanks! And coming from a LaSalle man that is high praise.
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I have a 35 12 sedan with an original dash and I can send you photos of that for the woodgrain pattern, which is straight and rather plain, not burl. The 35 12 roadster that I did the engine for some years ago didn't have wiper controls there, they were on the bottom edge of the dash.
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Right, the mains may be worn too, and may well need to be redone, but the rods will probably show more wear. I took it forgranted that if a shop takes the piston and rod assembly out, they will put in new rings, but I should have said that. Honestly, if the engine hasn't been rebuilt, it probably needs to come out, and be cleaned and bored, at which point, if the main and cam bearings are worn, I would have them rebabbited and align bored, put in a new timing chain, etc. The odd thing is that if the shop had the pan and head off, they should know what needs to be done. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe everything else is ok and they just screwed up the oil restrictor, ok, well, I doubt it, but it could be. I assume that if they did a valve job and not rings, the compression should be ok, but you are right, a compression check takes very little time.
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Well, you didn't say anything about the shop doing anything with the rod bearings - did they take off the caps and check the bearings and measure the crank when they had the oil pan off? This would be where I would look if you have a low oil pressure problem as wear there would result in low oil pressure. Worn cam bearings can be a problem too, but that isn't easily checked. Since they had the head off, and it would have been easy to replace the rings with both the head and pan off, I am guessing that you don't have excessive taper (wear) in the cylinders or bad rings. You do mention that they put on a repro filter - perhaps there is a restrictor fitting missing also. You can simply fit a modern oil pressure gauge temporarily to check the accuracy of the original guage. I would be very careful driving it with oil pressure that low, keep your engine speed down and don't put a high load on it. If you destroy a rod bearing it can tear up the crankshaft and that will get expensive, or worse yet, can put a rod through the crankcase.
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No, that is too low. When was the engine last rebuilt?
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Congratulations! The 39s are great cars, you will love it. I have both a Six and a Super 8, and have put over 50K miles on the Six.
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I use a shop that is familiar with them and has fixed quite a few of these and they do very good work, not cheap, but if they can't be fixed, they will tell you without putting a lot of money into them. Let me know if you need their info.
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No one now that I could really recommend. How bad are the heads you have? A lot of these can be fixed unless someone gets really rough taking them off.
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Pretty nice car - odd that the seller doesn't know it is a 120 8 cylinder. Maybe the 121 is 1 better than a 120...
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That is a great car! Thanks for sharing the photos.
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Glad I could help Tom. As far as I know all 37s had aluminum heads, as a general rule the steel heads were 34 and earlier. I have a couple of engines with High Compression heads and they don't have these letters, and I have seen two other cars with them which didn't have special numbers either. Are your heads marked "HC" and what size is the carb? The stars are typical, but I can't say that I have seen any letters after the number. The 38s have a single "A" before the serial number, 39s a "B", but not after, and the "A" looks just like the ones after your engine number. On 6s and 8s they sometimes used letters after to designate cam and lifter series, especially if an engine had been rebuilt and they had been changed, but there again, as far as I know there was only one cam used in the later series 12 engines. It could be possible that this was to denote that the engine had been changed and the same serial number kept, or rebuilt, maybe even at the factory. Packard did use letters, including double letters to indicate piston size, but those are usually on the deck of the block near each cylinder. There is also usually what I assume is an assembly number on the manifold deck face on the right rear, and is a 3 or 4 digit number. Packard doesn't mention this number in manuals and I have never met anyone who can tell me what it is, so I assume it was only used at the factory. Hopefully someone here can tell us. I work with a man who has been rebuilding 12s for over 40 years - I will ask him if he knows. Sometimes when there was a recall, the replaced part would be marked with a letter to confirm that the job had been done - 1935 12 oil filter/coolers were recalled and the new ones were marked with a "C" on top of the housing, so this probably meant something to them.
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Left front of the block, just below the head, and above the water jacket, there is a face that is about 5/8" tall, the number runs lenghtwise there. The location you describe is for a 38/39. It should be a 6 digit number.
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Mr Kazmer is as usual absolutely correct - my 41 160 5 pass sedan 1903 has this light above the rear window too.
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They even gave them both the same hood louvers. Somewhere I have a photo of the Packard when it was new. I think it was shown at one of the European salons or auto shows. I like it a lot.
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I have seen a couple of nicely restored ones of these sell over 40K, which is a lot, but they are popular cars, and of course cost more than that to restore. They are good looking cars I think, but I really prefer driving a 39, especially with overdrive, but there were a lot of other improvements too. These are nice cars for around town.
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The 120 has the chromed pot metal hood trim, and the 115 has louvers stamped in the sheet metal. The 115 has plain bumpers and small guards also.
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It looks like a 120 to me - hood, bumpers, etc. If it is solid and complete (as it looks), 10 - 15 should be about right. Unless there is something terrible wrong, getting it running will be pretty easy. These are popular and good looking little cars, easy and fun to drive. For some reason people want them to have sidemounts, which I think detract from the lines. The trunk rack is a nice and very valuable accessory.
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I have a customs port of entry near me and I had it brought there so that the container could stay locked until it got here, and I was present when it was inspected. He looked inside, said, yep, that's an American car alright, and went back to telling us funny stories about people trying to bribe him or sneak stuff past him. That part was painless. Once the forms were filed and the fees paid a few days later, I put the car in my trailer and took it away. The guys at the freight terminal yard were fascinated with the car and couldn't have been more helpful. In fact when they saw that the container was locked, they had put it up high on a stack of containers so that no one could get into it. They thought is was household goods and were anxious to see it when I told them about the car.
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This is Illinois - land of infamous politicians (we are famous for them, be they senators or governors - who we sometimes even put in jail, but not often enough) don't be fooled by the speeches - they are looking for every dollar they can squeeze anywhere to fund the machine and they won't be stopped. If you think you can fight this easily you are wrong - they will take your license and money as just a start and they have that power given by the legislature. They have your bank account number too, don't forget. Your attorney is right, pay it with a smile and don't ever look back, you will lose money besides paying the tax and your heart rate will go up and you won't even enjoy your car anymore. Just wait until we have an Illinois politician running things elsewhere. This state is screwed up, even the democrats can't get along and we have near total gridlock. I used to think other states were worse, but no, I don't think so anymore. I always overestimate the value of my cars for the state, even if they are in pieces, just so I don't have to hear from them. I made the mistake of getting plates (antique) for a car that I didn't drive, but thought that within 5 years I might. I got a proof of insurance letter in the mail and blew it off since the car hadn't moved and I had insurance, so I wasn't breaking any law. The next letter gave me 5 days to prove that I had insurance and outlined serious penalties with draconian fines, and I overnighted that original insurance card to them right now. Sort of ironic since since very few uninsured people are driving collector cars. They are serious, and when you call them, they don't joke around. I am not saying that you deserve to pay the tax, just that it may be easier to do it. These guys at the top really want that money and they force the bureaucrats and state employees to collect as much as they can or they will be replaced.
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I have done this from Europe and know people who have transported cars to and from Aus/NZ. If you are a novice and you hire someone to do everything for you, it will be expensive, but is probably the absolute safest way. If it is an American car, customs won't be a problem, but it will probably be inspected and you will have paperwork to file. You can't screw that part up. Depending on where you live you may find one person who does this or hundreds. Putting the car in a container costs more, but I decided it was safest. I went and supervised the loading myself. Be prepared for problems too. The company in Europe which the door to door expediters in the US chose to work with had been in business for over 150 years, but went broke while handling my container - I started out dealing with a VP of the company and finally I helped the last two employees push my car into the container. It was the last shipment in the company's long history. If I hadn't been there, I am not sure what would have happened. The US company really tried to hose me on insurance, which I ended up getting very cheap on my own in Europe. I had worked in the insurance industry for a while, so I knew how to do that much. Send me a message if you want some help. Good luck!
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The car looks really nice and very straight. You haven't said how it runs and drives, but since the cosmetics on the engine have been done at least sometime recently, I would guess that the engine has been rebuilt, which if done correctly is worth about $30K or more. From the looks of it, those might be new heads. The exhaust manifold should be porcelained, the coil wire is clipped in the wrong place (about 90% of them are), the water jackets should be green with painted bolts, the oil fill letters should be painted and the hoses aren't the really expensive Lynn Steele type. What I can see of the interior looks good - correct pattern on the door panel and nice wood with inlay. The dash is correctly woodgrained, but the carpet shouldn't be bound like that. The lighter is incorrect and the heater is the right type, but doesn't have the right knobs or center strip, and should be darker brown. The only think that looks out of place on the outside is that the trunk rack seems to be darker - it should be body color. This is a rare and unusual car, and club sedans traditionally bring a premium over all other sedans, so if this runs and drives well and the engine has had a professional rebuild, I would guess it is worth 80 - 95K. I personally would like it better in a different color, but that is just my taste. Unless it is very light, it looks like the pinstriping is missing, and doing that would help the car. A nice original Super 8 sold this year for almost 60K, and this is surely worth more.
32 Nash convertible; strange inside door handle setup question..
in Technical
Posted
Hi, I can help you with some Nash things - I am finishing a ground up restoration on a 1932 1093 convertible sedan. Info and parts are very scarce. I have a few extra things that will probably interchange. I am having the striker plates made now, and can get another set made for you if you want. They are special. The interior handles are best sourced from vintage and classic in AU. He is a good guy and is making them for a friend of mine who is also doing a 32 90 series. I have some photos of an original 32 80 series the same style as yours that I can email to you. I may have some hub caps and tail lights for you when I am done too. I thought parts were hard to find for my Cad V16, but that is a breeze compared to this Nash. I think that it will be better for you doing the smaller series car though. I may have a sales brochure for your car too. I will be glad to send you photos. Feel free to email me at packard12s@hotmail.com