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Twitch

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    Paint Question

    in Packard

    Posted

    I had a very long discussion about R12 and 134 with one of the owners of the radiator & A/C place I've patronized for decades about it and the bottom line as to whether 134 was as good as 12 was his answer that we all recognize- when you turn off the compressor the R12 system is still cool for quite a while where the R134 turn musty warm almost immediately. 134 sucks!

    Mark-if you want to see a hoohaa about it's effects check out the Rants & Raves topic under bio-diesel and look at all the fruitcake comments and utter hate that was generated by forum folks. Just read down till they start the global warming BS.

    <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

    Repainting Car- Pros and Cons

    in Technical

    Posted

    A true virtuoso with paint can fill in the worn off part and make it match the overall aged original look. It won't look like new paint just overall even depth and coverage if that is the primary concern. When expert painters need to blend in collision damage without painting the whole car they simply adjust for age of surrounding paint. Your car could be entirely done this way if need be.

    Dunno2.gif

    Point vs. Electronic Ignition

    in Chevrolet & GMC - General

    Posted

    To tell you the truth I can't remember. The last was still working OK but I decided to go HEI. The 1st one was no big name brand for sure. The Pertronix stuff available in most speed shops seem to be decent and of course MSD is great. It sure makes driving better without points and the attendant adjusting, filing, and replacing. I'd usually get a max of only 8000 miles from points.

    Friends & Enemies

    in Packard

    Posted

    Hey did you get that $1.95 gas door chrome trim thing I told you about?

    Ebay over all rate a 75 on a scale of 100 for me. Mostly people are just blowing money on stuff cause they get carried away. I've watched certain items like NOS, as is voltage regulators go for almost the same as modern guaranteed repro ones for sale. Some of the stuff for sale is easily obtainable at the local auto parts store for less! Dice-shaped valve stem caps, fuzzy dice and things in that category. 6v tractor or universal coils are less expensive than other mail order places. Anything that specifically says Packard costs more even if there are equivilants for other applications.

    People bid way over the value of one #3 car and another nice car gets insulting bids. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

    Tough Restoration Jobs!!!!!!!!!!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah Wayne- nothing is more over-rated than the secret and magical exotic car tune ups. I say this in a country where the inexpensive V-8 is king and always has been affordable by the masses. When Henry Ford set out to beat Ferrari in international racing with the Cobra and GT-40 they did it with a bunch of V-8s that didn't know they were technically inferior. shocked.gif

    antifreeze

    in Technical

    Posted

    Yeah I think it's one thing to mess with a secondary collectable car and leisurely disassemble something on it and finish work on it next week or whenever. But when we have our primary transportation car in mind we don't relish servicing it since it causes inconvenience for the average person. Ya gotta take it somewhere and leave it and have someone pick you up and drop you off again. You need to leave work early or come in late and even if you do some stuff yourself you need to finish it on the weekend ASAP to get it in service again.

    Tech is good. And extended anything is better if all elements are satifactorily up to spec allowing "extended" to be safe. Every mechanic I've ever known has pretty much paraphrased that oil/filter changes are the cheapest insurance to protect your investment.

    I know for certain that my recycled oil is used in some product and not dumped in a hole somewhere. I haven't had the need to do any radiator flushing myself lately. I know that my radiator A/C place has a disposal truck come to pick all that stuff up. I've been having them do any flush/change of coolant since I've had cars in for other A/C work at the same time 99% of the time.

    And that's a good question. While there is oil recycling what about coolant? Just where is Joe Shadetree supposed to dump it? Besides larger towns the average person changing their oil is going to just dump it like we all did before if there is no facility to reclaim it. What DO you do in small town America?

    reason you own your old car

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Old cars have always held interest for me. When I was a kid in the 50s cars from the 30s were old to me and very interesting. As I grew up cars of the 40s were cool to me. The 1940 Ford was my all time favorite. In some ways I guess it still is. I built 1/25 scale plastic models and had many cars that I liked.

    My current older cars were never elaborately planned for. My 1973 Z-28 was purchased new- the only one before or since. It was the 1st year for factory A/C on the Z-28 which cost $398. I never planned to keep it 31 years but soon after 73 Detroit was bombarded by do-gooder ideas from insurance companies and the Feds were close behind with all their draconian legislature regarding just about everything involved in automobiles it seemed. So I kept the Camaro. From the 70s on I stayed with Cadillacs. The Z-28 was a 2nd car and not driven much. The 80 brought crappier cars yet so I just kept it.

    My next car was a 65 Nova. I had belonged to a beloved cousin who died a few years ago. She?d quit driving at age 86 and sold her car to a friend of my youngest daughter. He?d always wanted a Nova. Anyhow he installed a modern radio below the dash so as not to disturb the original but driving at night and fiddling with a radio down there was a disaster and he slammed into a parked truck.

    Somehow I have the car which needs a frame tweak of about a ½ inch and all sheet metal forward of the firewall and all except the 283 engine. The great thing is I can rebuild this car easily due to companies that make tons of repro parts. That?s going to happen in 2005.

    My 96 El Dorado Touring Coupe is not seen nearly as much as Sevilles are in my area and since El Dorado has been shelved since 2002 we?ll see if the Eldo shape remains at all unique as new stuff is unveiled. Already 9 model years old?!

    My latest acquisition is a 1950 Packard 4 door sedan. Earlier this year when I was diagnosed with cancer I began collecting pictures from the web of classic cars for my screen saver. It took my mind off things. Now that I sort of have things in check I decided I really wanted another older car.

    At 1st I looked for a 57 Olds 98 4dr. HT like I once had in the 60s. Alas decent ones are in the $25-30k+ area of pricing these days. They were never popular cars so it must be part of the tri-year Chevy interest spilled over to include anything from 57. I decided on a 48-50 Packard. Older series looked a bit too old and newer series looked a bit too modern.

    My Dad sold Packards when in 1949 they sales guys had 50th anniversary gold Packards. Afterwards he owned a 40 for a while.

    Today when I cruise in the fifty I enter through a huge door opened by a duplicate of a refrigerator handle from the 50s era. The interior aroma is that unexplainable but distinctively ?old car,? due to the original carpet, headliner and upholstery. When I bring the unique straight eight to life via the gas pedal starter switch 2004 begins to get fuzzy. I wanted the straight 8 since it was different than anything else of the 50s era. The column shifter is lovely old tech.

    The exhaust actually smells like the byproduct of an internal combustion engine instead of the result of some Frankenstein-ish contraption full of Rube Goldberg devices that produce nothing but an unfulfilling mechanical compromise.

    The sun filters through the 54 year old glass and transcends the time barrier. As I peer under the huge sun visor and down the regal hood through the split windshield to the cormorant?s wings far away I realize that the cars outside begin to melt. Their misshapen forms morph into car bodies from the 50s. There are no more foreign cars plaguing my streets when I?m in the Packard. They?re 57 Buicks, 54 Chevys, and 56 Dodges now. They are impotent as threats to American auto dominance now.

    The 288 quietly powers along the boulevard and there is no politically correctness. There are no zealots whining about animal rights or vegetarians compelling me to not eat anything that ever lived and no extremists yodeling on about a half inch long tadpole that spans only when Farmer Jones? back forty floods every ten years and how we need to confiscate that land from the farmer to protect everyone.

    In the Packard no one says ?happy non-denominational holiday,? they say ?Merry Christmas.? They can say the pledge of allegiance using ?God? in it. There are no ?alleged? murderers spoken of, just plain murderers. No one in the 1950 is still whimpering about the Truman vs. Dewey presidential election results from months ago.

    My car was built in the time when real men ruled. They made tough decisions like dropping atomic bombs that killed many but saved more. They put famous generals in their place when they seemed to forget that political rather than military force dominated the country. They waged unpopular conflicts in their time so we wouldn?t have to later. Commies were commies not ?democratically challenged.? They also built autos without much compromise reflecting the traditional values of American innovation and industrial might.

    As the eternal sun streams in, in faithful obedience as it did in 1950, phrases waft in through the open window. ?An old Packard?? ??a neat old car.?

    When I?m in the Packard I frankly don?t care about anyone or any thing but myself. That is MY time and my place even if it is a bit deluded. What the car does is to dilute the harshness of 2004-05. It time travels to a place where there was no drug crime problem, AIDS or radicals committing felonies in the misguided name of some obscure environmental crusade. It takes me back to a time when I was a kid in the 50s not worrying about today?s cancer and hypertension.

    I think I?ll go out to the garage right now, start that colossal engine and get a wiff of that unadulterated exhaust just for old times? sake?later.

    Scene_from_50s.gif

    Cross reference 22,23,24th series

    in Packard

    Posted

    Don't know exactly what all folks with 48-54s have for air cleaners but found on my type- see attachment- a paper filter 8" diameter by 1 1/2" thick works nicely in place of the oil bath thing for normal driving. Don't know what exact filter brands and numbers work but it's real easy to go into the auto parts places and measure. I had one in the garage from an unknown source that hapilly fit. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

    What was the all-time stupidest car movie?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    By today's standards My Mother the Car would be a hit, no doubt!I still think an udated version would work. <span style="font-style: italic">My Brother the Car</span> would feature an 81 El Dorado inhabited by the ghost of Rick James making for some wild adventures.

    BTW- the word I used in previous post which was censored was f-u-n-k as in funky, funkadylic etc. Anyone that missed the genre plese note that "funk" music and its derivitives is/was a legitimate expression. It isn't now or never was intended to be a clone-ish word of the bad word. Surf the web with "funk" as a key word and you'll see.

    2004087ap-rickjames_230.jpg

    GC_yrb_cover_small.jpg

    Electronic Ignition

    in Packard

    Posted

    What year is your car again? I would have figured there'd be more cars with Delco than Autolite distributors as the same Delco unit is used into the 50s by other makes and someone would make one, but nooooooo! Who is John Brooks?

    ButButBut.gif

    Electronic Ignition

    in Packard

    Posted

    BTW Rick on the subject that was going about electronic ignitions- For sure Pertronix does not list a unit for the 288 that uses Delco distributor. Was by a speed shop yesterday and had a them look it up since they sold the units.

    Dunno2.gif

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