Mr.Pushbutton
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Posts posted by Mr.Pushbutton
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Oh yes, another thing--you can't compare the speed of the starter motor of a '55-'56 to anything made after '56. You can't compare it to your modern car's starter, or your 196X small block powered chevy. With everything in order, the '55-'56 starter will crank fast enough to prime the fuel system, and start the engine. Job done. Design criteria met.
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My '56 400 has 10:1 compression and it turns over fast 'n fine. The "exact (vintage) appearance" replica batteries that are offered these days are only so-so battries, IMHO. The optima batteries are excellent--they pack tons of CCA in a tight little package. I think the best thing to do there is to buy the "exact
appearance" battery, use it till it dies (usually about 2 years in a northern climate collector car) then gut it and put the optima core inside (there's ample room). Drain the acid into a safe container for responsible disposal, neutralize the inside with baking soda and water, then melt the tar around the top edges to remove the top/plate core. 86 the plates, and use a marine adaptor (wing nut hole to top post style) and re-pot the top back on. I've seen Devcon 2 part rubber products used for this, or you can just use roofing tar--like the OEM. You'll have a kick-ass, original battery that lasts about 10 years.. This is slightly unpleasant work that is best done outdoors, and any and all safety precautions should be taken.
I guess B.H. and I are odd men out with the "old wives tale club" re:6V and perhaps even early 12V applications. As I stated in my original post, I've fixed many a slow-no cranking 6V car to ample cranking speed by getting everything back to square one, proper operating order as built. If 6V was that messed up an idea, the US auto industry would have gone over to 12V by the early to mid 1920's. The higher compression engines of the 50's, and the production costs were the main reason 12V was adapted. I worked for a collector who, at his peak owned 240 cars, and he really liked 30's,40's and early 50's cars. We always hated looking under the hood and finding someone else's "better engineering" and the time we had to spend figuring out the method to their madness (there was a Pierce Arrow that defied description!). More often than not, we put it back to original, with all components operating to optimal condition. They cranked over fine, started and ran as well as the health of the long block would allow (they had to be pretty bad before the $$ for a rebuild would flow).
I said it before, and I'll say it again, if your 12V V8 Packard does not turn over fast enough, the fack that it is a 12V system is not your problem. You have a weak link (or compound weak links) in your battery/cables/soleniod/starter/charging system and it's telling you about the problem.
One thing I can not stress enough is to look at the Ground cable and make certain it is of the flat braided variety, as built. I have seen many "them 6V cars never started" cars with 12V auto parts store generic, round cables where the (higher current capacity)flat braided cable WAS. This is wrong, this is bad. 6V batteries are not only used in agricultural equipment, but are still used in material handling equipment as well.It's a free country, It's your car. Do as you please. While you are at it, write up a suppliment to the shop manual outlining all of your mods, so the next guy has something to go on.
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Did the Clipper use a different trunk mat than the senior cars? the senior cars used a hounds-tooth black/grey pattern over white. Patrician Industries makes new kits in this pattern. I just don't know enough about the clipper models to know what is "correct" for those models.
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55 Packard guy states "Thanks. I'm going to try that. The starter cranks woefully slow now". A few things to check first. Are you using the flat braided battery "ground" cable (pos.gnd. in '55) between the battery and the engine block, or did Billy Bob and Cooter put an off the shelf, modern car type Wall-napa-zone-mart Round cable on 'er in place of the flat braid cable? that matters!
has the starter been cosmetically restored ( I have seen starters where current flow to the "grounding" side of the starter motor was impeded by lots n' lots of pretty paint work). Has the soleniod been checked and eliminated as a problem? If the answer to all the above is NO, get thee to a competent starter motor rebuilder. There is no reason a 12V starter motor should not crank the engine with more than enough speed to prime a dry fuel pump (although I like to use an electric pump for this and save my CCA for starting the engine) and start the engine. I have fixed 6V systems for people who claim "those 6 volt cars never cranked over anyway", again, a false "truth". A healthy starter motor, ample, proper battery cables, a healthy battery of sufficent CCA rating, a properly functioning charging system (we're talking a "whole patient" approach here) and most 6V systems will turn over just fine. 12V systems are easier yet!.
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Brian, the 16MM print I saw in south bend 20 years ago was PERFECT. The print quality was tops, and the color was true and vibrant. Many color films from the 50's-70's suffer from degradation of the color--everything tends to get pink, due to the other two primary color dyes fading. Theatrical 35MM prints with "color by Deluxe" are known for this fault. I have experience with this in my cinema-theatrical endeavors. Not so with the Packard film. It was near perfection. The fault with the vhs tape the guy from NJ sold (same guy I got my copy from) is that his transfer was done on the cheap. film to video transfer is a snap, with the right quality equipment. Hence my comment about wishing I could have paid another $10 for a quality copy. John <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />
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Bose? the audio manufacturer? My high end audio snob friends have a saying:
"No highs, no lows, must be BOSE" <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
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Brian, I have "the safe road ahead" on VHS. I saw it about 20 years ago at a Stude meet in South bend, inside the old plant. The VHS copy was poor--a lousy transfer. I bought it at Hershey from a guy who specialized in old automotive film-to-video transfers. You are right, the acting is very reminicent of the "Superman" TV show, and it's a hokey story, but hey--it's from Packard, and shows brand new 56 models doing their thing. I would gladly have forked over another $10 to get a clean transfer video. The man the couple in the film visited was (in the story line) a retired engineer who was building a model of the Packard T-L chassis for Packard. Bill Allison, the inventor of T-L once spoke at a Motor City Packards meeting, and he brought along a dozen beautifully crafted brass models of contemporary (in the mid 80's) unit body "chassis"/suspensions that were updates of the Packard T-L system. Bill made the models himself. They all used the concept of interlinking front and rear suspension. Some used torsion bars, some used transverse leaf springs--many different approaches. Bill took these to all of the big three engineering people. They all said the same thing--too expensive to build, we're making money with what we've got, people are still buying what we make. Bill was an engineer's engineer. I'm glad our favorite company put his idea to work. John
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Also note the thinner whitewall tires on the Caribbean conv. and 400, but not on the Caribbean HT. I bought that picture about 18 years ago. I have a similar '56 shot in a much smaller room (looks like a hotel show room), the same "props", not as many cars. It would be interesting to see a comparable auto show display from one of the big three in '56. I wonder if they were all that simple, or did Packard's booth reflect their waining fortune at the time? We are getting ready for the Detroit auto show, in two weeks. Always amazing displays there. enjoy, John
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Auburn fans- check out http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?col...Motor%20Company,%20Eighteenth%20Street%20%26%20Columbia%20Avenue,%20Connersville,%20Fayette%20County,%20IN&displayType=1&maxCols=4 some interesting vintage Auburn photos.
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1956 too! some states got confused/weird on Packard vin#'s due to the stamped "anti-theft" # on the firewall. My former employer had 20 Packards at one time (while I worked for him) and depending on what state it was last titled in, or how dull a pencil the previous owners were, some vin's were all screwed up, which became a nightmare when he sold most of them at auction.
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I was there in 1979, and got to meet the great man, himself. The website does not have a picture that does justice to the spectacle that was Barney's collection. there were what looked like huge lumberyard sheds, with acre upon acre of teens,twenties (lots) and 30's cars stacked on end, radiators facing up, then other cars stacked horizontally on top of those. The WWII scrap officals wanted those cars for the war effort, and Barney was going to lose them, but his old friend Henry Ford (THE H.F.) steppped in and called off the dogs. Old Henry found some scrap metal in one of his plants, and donated that in place of Barney's cars. His passing was the end of an era. My former employer went to the city with a plan to convert the train station (it's abandoned now--and on the above listed websites) into a Detroit auto history museum, which would have included Barney's "nice" cars. His plans fell on deaf ears (the Coleman Young admin.) what a loss all around. J
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Sorry guys, it wasn't the camera lens that caused the LH optical distortion in that photo, but rather my Hewlett-Studebaker scan-copy-fax-print piece of crap machine. She's an old sheet feed model, I bought it about a year before all those nice flatbed 4-in-1's came out. I've been dropping some heavy hints around here, so we'll see if Santa comes through. (hope he's not checking my "honey-do list!). I got the original back out, and it's a standard '55
Carribean, regular '55 senior front fenders. The chassis is mounted on some kind of platform riser, I would guess about 12" tall, and it has the funky "dirt floor" appearance that V8 mentioned, which on the original looks to be a simulated grass "mound" effect. The flooring in the room seems to be rubber matting (it's rolling up over the stanchon in front of the drivers door of the carribean) at the very rear of the photo, there is what appears to be a concrete floor, under the partition drape. This was obviously before the days of new carpeting wall to wall at the auto shows. But then again, it was in Dallas, and the auto show could have been in a rodeo arena.
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Oh yea, I forgot--the Confederate flags are mounted to the torsion bars,so that they would "wave back and fourth" as the bars twist back and fourth. John
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Glad you liked it. I was going to point out the Dixie flags. I'm sure Billy Bob and Cooter would approve. I have a few more 55-56 8X10's. Over time, with Craig's kind assistance, I'll share them. John
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No, I would try Wright glass on Gratiot ave. in Detroit. I have done several mirror projects through them, and the resilvering was beautiful.
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Post deleted by Mr.Pushbutton
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Twitch, unlike LA, Detroit has no mountain range or other geological feature to hinder unlimited growth. Perhaps it's a sad outgrowth of our principal industry (i.e. new=good, old=bad), but the powers that be prefer to buy up farm pastures for new housing and industrial development. The federal government helped this process along with housing loans that favored suburban new construction over old/existing housing. The same Federal government established the brownfield rulings on old industrial sites, and that didn't do the cities any favors either. The riots were in '67, and there may be an odd burned out hulk not demolished/carted away, but all other traces are gone. There is now a new strip mall at 12th and Claremont, the epicenter of the riots. This may sound like something from the peoples republic of California, but I wish that Michigan would keep all industrial work/development in the Detroit industrial areas (that are already messed up), tear down unusable factories and build the new on the sites, rather than the current practice of going out to farm country and plowing over a pasture. Dave K. from Canada, you can drive by the Packard plant, it's not that bad, just apply common sense, don't go at night (early AM is the best time), oh and it's off of I-94, not I-75.
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next time you are at Lackluster video, check out "True Romance" (1993) there is a scene early on where Dennis Hopper is a security guard, and is shown locking up the gate at the Packard plant. The first part of the movie was shot in Detroit, and the P plant had it's 15 mins. there. Unfortunately, there is a lot of interest in demolition, a crooked developer (whose son owned the demolition firm that illegally began demo) was conspiring with the city to 86 the place. They did everything possible to hasten the demise of the place, took out window sections, exposed as much to the elements as possible. It's most likely a matter of time. I would be happy if a large industrial concern restored the office HQ portion and demolished and built a modern factory on to the back. That's unlikely though. The city, like the rest of the nation has given up on manufacturing what we use, and prefers to send that work to EPA free, OSHA free and trial attorney free China. Detroit would rather invest in gambling casinos. The beat goes on with this one, and it's just a matter of time before the folks who stand to profit off of this regroup and get their way. We are discussing a "Detroit automotive historical site" bus tour for the 2006 national convention, which I will lead. The last stop will be the Packard plant, which should still be there in 2006. Nothing happens that fast in Detroit. You will want to stay on the bus, though--that's a Two-Gun neighborhood. John
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hey fellow Packard fans: there is a website with pictures of the Packard plant, as she sits today http://www.survivalcrackas.com/ (LINK BROKEN???-Wayne)go to the menu prompt on the upper left side of the screen, select "pictures" then scroll down to 'Packard plant". The site is put up by a couple of high school aged kids who explore abanonded buildings in Detroit (no shortage here), and take pictures, and put them up for us to enjoy. John
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yea, I guess you are right, the bumper is gone. That picture is little-bitty on my crappy crt monitor, I'm lucky I saw the chrome. Good news is, I going to get my eyes checked next week. BUT CHROME STILL RULES!
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that silver bathtub gets my appreciation on the fact that unlike a lot of rod projects happening lately, it has CHROME bumpers, like it 'oughta. Nothing burns my biscuts more than these 195X-197X cars streetrodded with PAINTED bumpers. The streetroddong I can handle, even if I am Orthodox when it comes to Packards.
Ford, Chebby, go ahead. If they want a car where the bumper is painted the same color as the body why not rod out a 1990 Caprice. They spend tons of money on drivetrain stuff, and we antique car guys could all learn from the streetrod boys when it comes to body and paint. [color:"red"] is it cheapness--or is that just the fad now?
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Andy, try Silvercraft in Detroit. We have sent them reflectors from many cars in our shop and they come back beautiful. I did a google search to find the information below and discovered they had a fire last week, but the article states that it was a two alarm fire, was extinguished successfully, so I'm assuming the place didn't burn down, and that they are still in business.
Silvercraft Inc
Contact Info:
(313) 534-5000
Location Info:
15770 Dale Street, Detroit, MI 48223
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Albert is correct: the Packard stomp n' start is a small switch on the carb, actuated by the throttle linkage, that sends power to the pull-in coil of the starter solenoid. The '37 Ford has a round "plunger" type pedal (bigger in dia. than a dimmer switch) that when depressed, physically engages the heavy contact points for the starter motor. Your foot (and leg) are the "solenoid". Old Henry liked em' simple. Billy Bob and Cooter still do. John
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the factory (or outside job shop) made T-L "show" chassis' for the auto show circuit. T-L was so radically different that they had to ballyhoo it. I have an 8X10 glossy of an autoshow '56 Packard display. I'll try to dig it up and scan it in for ya'll.
24.Volt Experiment
in Packard
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A '29 has an Owens starter, does it not? if so, you can't print enough money to get a new field or armature, should the old one burn out. The're your dice--roll 'em.