Restorer32

Save yourself a lot of aggravation and just send your pitted potmetal parts to a reputable plater. There is one thing that is always missing from those packs of "miracle" welding rods and that thing is experience. Next time you are at Carlisle or anywhere where there is a guy selling these products, ask him how much experience he has welding. Likely he has been welding/brazing/soldering for many years. We used to have spaces at Carlisle next to a guy selling similar miracle rods. He could weld aluminum beer cans slick as anything. Turns out the rods were the same as you could buy at any welding supply shop. It was his 26 years as a welding teacher that allowed him to make them work. You will notice that these demonstrators will weld old heavy die cast and they will weld thin new aluminum but you never see them weld old thin diecast or old thin aluminum. I suggest you try repairing at least one of your die cast pieces yourself. You will gain a greater appreciation for what platers go thru to earn a buck. Most platers would strip your potmetal, copper plate and then make repairs with common lead-tin solder before copper plating again to encapsulate the repairs before nickle and chrome plating.

I am a member of the Professionla Car Society, those folks who admire and collect hearses, ambulances, flower cars and limos. Even within that close knit group you still, though thankfully rarely, hear a "hearse" referred to as a "hurst". "Originally owned by Henry Ford". Wern't all Fords from the 40's and earlier originally owned by Henry Ford? "Cadillac LaSalle". Hear this all the time but have you ever heard Ford Mercury or Ford Edsel ?

Identical, though the ones used on your Packard fenders were likely larger than the 1/4-28 size we needed for this project.

How large is the flea market and does it operate Sunday as well?

Found a good pair several weeks ago but will keep your info on file for the next tme. Thanks!

Just got the ones I ordered from McMaster. Not exactly like the original but very, very close.

I will post your request on the Professional Car Society forum.

Trippe lights of this type are very neat but apparently they were never a factory option on any American car during the Classic era. I could be wrong but I've never seen a factory photo of a car with these bumper bracket mounted style Trippes nor have I ever seen a factory accessory catalog showing these. The '32 Packard Accessory catalog shows a "Trippe Light" but it is mounted above the bumper on a cross shaft in similar fashion to the Lorraine Light. i would be happy to be proven wrong!

Apex does not have anything very close to the originals. They also only sell thru distributors. A closer perusal of the McMaster Carr Catalog found ones very similar to the original. Look for "Retainer Weld Nuts", also called "Bridge Weld Nuts". Why they couldn't group them with their other speednuts, cage nuts etc., I have no idea.

Sometimes it's a case where someone is simply tired of searching for a particular part or perhaps tired of paying their restorer to search. You will often find that overseas buyers will pay more when they come across a part they need due to the difficulty of searching for American car parts in Europe. I have paid more for parts than what they were worth on occasion just to get on with the project. It's a tough call sometimes, especially when you're spending a customer's money. If they are not able to search for parts themselves and they have to pay someone to do it, it sometimes makes sense to pay what may seem to be an inflated price. Sure, the part you need will likely show up again at a better price, but will it show up before you absolutely need it? All that being said, $300 seem like a h*ll of a lot of money for a license plate surround!

I even met a fellow once who collected Studebakers!

I had a customer years ago who brought us a pair of front fenders from a Model A that he wanted painted. He had labeled them left and right and ask us not to get the labels confused. He didn't want to run into problems remounting them. I'm sure we could have billed him for muffler bearings, smoke shifters, tin worm repellent or Model T brake linings and he would have never known the difference.

Looking for a source for the old style weld-in cage nuts. The kind with a sheetmetal strap with ears that are spot welded in place. These use loosely captured square nuts. McMaster-Carr doesn't have them. Not J nuts or Tinnerman nuts, these are available anywhere. Thanks!

Only car my Mom ever owned was a Chevette. Absolutely the poorest built car I have ever seen, bar none. It disintegrated sitting in the driveway. Parts would deteriorate and literally fall off the car. Mechanically it wasn't so bad, it kept running, more or less, but it was determined to recycle itself. AT 12000 miles it was literally used up. Chewing gum under a desk will last for decades but the plastic on this car rotted faster than it could be replaced. I think the seats cracked immediately upon their first exposure to sunlight and the sun visors automatically came down at the slightest bump. That was bad because the only thing holding the headliner in place was the sunvisors and a few lengths of duct tape. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing one at a show, it would bring back memories. Let's face it, many cars from the teens and twenties were no better designed and no better built than this testament to Detroit's arrogance.

For a '33 V12 Fleetwood limo we need a water pump packing nut, outer runningboard trim (about 56", two air cleaner assemblies that sit on top of the air cleaner "plenums" mounted on the firewall, dash insert trim surround pieces and likely other bits and pieces as we put together this var which came to us disassembled. Thanks!

By my serial # book it would be a 1930 Model S. Certainly worth saving.

1932 Packards (and other years I think) have a similar option. By turning a lever on the steering wheel a vacuum system is brought into play that literally sucks the clutch pedal to the floor any time you lift your foot from the accelerator. Drift up to a stop sign, change gears without touching the clutch, advance the accelerator and the clutch slowly engages. Works better in theory than in practice, apparently. Difficult to adjust properly. Wasn't freewheeling outlawed in about 1933?

They're not trippes.

Yes, if he has at least 1/2 of each bow in good enough condition to determine the curvature and cross section of the bows. If he has one side of the irons we can make new in stainless steel. Nothing particularly complicated about this top. We steam bend our own bows in oak as original.

I've made them in the past but no longer have the patterns. Also made the irons in stainless steel. If he can secure the loan of patterns I'd be happy to bend them up for him or maybe Oak Bows has patterns?

The original pump has a chrome air chamber on top and as you know it is very visible when you open the hood. I've sold several of these pumps over the years and if I found one for under $500 I would consider it a bargain. Be careful though, inside the thing there is a very delicate die cast affair that holds the valve in place. This crown-like part is often broken. Good luck!

I have a customer with just such a room off his living room. Large French doors on one end. Keeps his '21 Rolls Royce Ghost in it. Those of you in the Philly area may know him.

Very true Wes, after working on this stuff for a few years your eye goes right to those incorrect items. Too many years at it and you start to obsess about the details. Had a customer call me once from California complaining that the rivet heads on a set of phaeton top irons I had made for him were 20 thou too big.

You have an AC replacement for the original? If so it was likely made by Gould. He used to (and probably still does)take AC pumps and install a new activating lever to adapt them to the Packard engine. Not original but looks somewhat similar. You'll lose points if you show it, but perfectly reliable. I loaned him an original pump from which he patterned his laminated activating lever. This would have been in the 1980s.

Ahhh...memories. My brother almost headed out on a road trip to look at a Ferrari that one of Mom's elderly friends had told her was stored in her shed. Further questioning revealed that is was a Volare.