Rusty_OToole

If you just want to get it running for evaluation purposes, or to drive it around a little, use a motorboat gas tank. Do not trust the original tank and old gas. I would check the oil, take out the spark plugs and squirt a little oil down the cylinders. Then turn the engine over carefully by hand. Take off the valve covers and watch that the valves all open and close. Squirt some oil on the valve stems and rocker arms too. If a valve sticks try prying gently, it should come loose. If it turns over and the valves are free turn your attention to the distributor. Clean the points carefully with contact cleaner and a strip of white paper. Now check if the coil is firing when you open and close the points. Once you have the ignition working try turning the engine over, with the plugs out, but plugged into the wires. Observe if the plugs are all firing. If they are, put them back in and connect up the gas. Pour a little gas down the carb and fire it up. What I have told you is the basic method I use to revive an old engine. There are other details to it, depending what problems you run into. The basic idea is to assume the engine was running OK when put away, and disturb things as little as possible. If you go tearing everything apart you have no idea what was working and what wasn't and you have to go right back to basics and check everything from scratch. If you assume everything was working you can discover any faults as you go along. O ya don't forget to check the rad and have a pail of water handy. Do not fill it up until you are sure it is going to start. Check the drain valve. If it starts, put some water in and let the engine warm up. It may run rough at first but should smooth out some if you let it warm up for 10 minutes to 1/2 hour.

Your engine has a unique feature that makes it easy to find TDC. On the last cylinder there is a pipe plug right above the piston. You can take out this plug and drop a screwdriver down the hole, and feel when the piston reaches TDC. #1 and #6 reach TDC at the same time. Sometimes the rubber damper in a flywheel pulley fails, allowing the timing mark to shift. You can double check this with the method described above. The different springs are selected to give the correct advance characteristics. It appears the light spring allows quick advance as soon as the engine starts, then it advances more slowly as the engine speeds up.

You are right about the Edsel being the right car at the wrong time. A few years earlier medium price car sales were very strong, in fact Buick outsold Plymouth in 1954. In the medium price bracket all Ford had was Mercury, and if a Ford man did not happen to like the Mercury it was a long jump to Lincoln. By contrast Chrysler had Dodge, DeSoto and the Chrysler Windsor while GM offered Pontiac, Olds and Buick. Edsel was supposed to compete with all those cars while Mercury was to go against the big Buick Roadmaster and Chrysler New Yorker while Lincoln sold against Cadillac, Imperial and Packard. Unfortunately Edsel debuted just when everyone quit buying large luxurious cars and turned to small cars like the Rambler, Volkswagen and Studebaker Lark. Nobody mentions that Ford brought out 5 new cars between 1955 and 1965 and every one was a smash hit except Edsel. They were the Thunderbird, Edsel, Falcon, Fairlane and Mustang. Not a bad batting average, if you can hit .800 you are a champ in any league.

They look good under neon lights don't they?

When they announced the new OHV V8 in 1955 Packard put out a press release comparing engine life of the new vs old engine. They said at high speed the straight eight had a life of 18,000 miles and the new engine had a life of over 100,000 miles. Packard had a fine high speed test track where it was possible to hold speeds of 100MPH or more indefinitely. In normal service a well maintained straight eight would have a life of 80,000 to 100,000 miles.

Here's a way to track down a short or current draw. Disconnect a battery cable (either one will do) and connect a test light in series. Remove fuses one by one until the light goes out. Now you know which circuit is drawing power. This does not automatically find the fault, but does narrow it down. If the fuse does not power anything critical you can leave it out till you find the fault. By the way when you do this test don't forget your dome light. If you have the car door open shut off the dome light. Other common drains are a trunk light and a glove compartment light, either can be on all the time if the switch is faulty. I assume you already made sure you didn't leave anything turned on.

They used to use a paste of white lead in oil. No doubt this has been taken off the market. Does your local auto parts store have anything for marking gears? Summit Racing should sell something for this purpose.

Can you back off the adjuster? Is the car moveable? Backing off the adjuster should free the brakes. If not sometimes cutting the brake line or opening the bleeder to let off pressure will help. If the drum is still stuck trying to move the car back and forth will sometimes break it free, or vigorous pounding with a big hammer. If you try the hammer you have to be careful not to damage the brake drum. It's a matter of vibrating the shoes loose if they are stuck. Often the drum has a ridge around the inside. In that case you have to back the adjustment way off to get the drum over the shoes.

The Cad V16 was a disappointment in terms of sales, and it was a technical dead end. In other words from a business standpoint it was a flop. This does not take away from the merits of the motor, or the number of people who desired one (but couldn't afford it). My point was that there is such a thing as a magnificent flop, a car that seems to have everything but in reality, misses the mark. Other examples would the the Chrysler turbine car already mentioned, and possibly the front wheel drive Cord. GM had a whole series of great new ideas that went noplace in the 60s such as the Corvair, aluminum engine Olds F85 and Buick Special, Pontiac Tempest with 4 wheel independent suspension and slant 4 motor made out of half a V8.

It could be the switch and it could be the starter relay. Chrysler products have a starter relay, a gold colored box with wires on it connected to the starter. When you turn the key do the dash lights etc come on? You can check if power gets to the relay when you turn the key, this will tell you if it is the relay or key switch.

Is this an S&M thing? When they were fooling around with Bill Blass Lincolns and similar signature models why didn't they bring out a Mercury Marquis de Sade with black leather upholstery, chrome tire chains and a whip antenna?

You can only say it from a historical point of view. At the time they were proud of their new car, rightly so. Events proved it to be the wrong car at the wrong time. Such cars became passe and that whole line of development turned out to be a dead end. I knew my statement would be controversial. The fact is, the car was a white elephant. No doubt a white elephant can be an awe inspiring sight but still. It reminds me of a statement by a former executive of Kaiser Frazer. He was saying the company should never have made such cars as the 4 door convertible and Kaiser Darrin because they cost the company badly needed resources and resulted in losses of time and money they could not afford. The interviewer pointed out that those cars are now valuable collector's items to which he replied, "so is the ossified egg of the Dodo bird".

Continental Red Seal 4 cylinder engines out of Star cars were a favorite. They powered many buck saws for cutting firewood, before the chain saw came in. Model A engines were popular too if you wanted something a little bigger. Have also seen home made welding outfits and small tractors, built in the fifties and sixties, powered by 4 cylinder OHV engines out of English Austins. I have a pump powered by a Chrysler flathead industrial engine, and was told about a water pump on a local golf course powered by a Chrysler hemi. In Holland after the war, Merlin engines were used to power the water pumps that drained the polders. These replaced the windmills, and were in turn replaced by diesels. I expect in these "green" times, they are going back to windmills.

How about an exhaust pipe vacuum cleaner? This was a venturi device that went on the tailpipe. The exhaust created a suction effect on a long hose which was used to vacuum the interior of the car. All the crap flew out the tail pipe behind the car I guess. I have seen ads for these from the fifties. It sticks in my mind that they were a VW accessory but probably were available for other cars.

Try a search for Scripophily, there are collectors of old stock certificates like there are for stamps.

How about the Cadillac V16? First year ads called it America's most exclusive car, and bragged only 5000 would be sold the first year. What a laugh. They made that model for 10 years and never sold 5000 the whole time. It may have been a great car in some ways but it was a commercial flop. It was also a technical dead end. GM deserves the credit for being willing to try a lot of new ideas but most of them were flops, while a few were screaming successes.

20W50 is not the same, it is 20W oil with an additive. Any good auto parts store should be able to get 50 weight oil. If not, straight 30 weight lawn mower oil, 4 stroke type, should see you through.

I checked a 40s Chrysler head and it says Spitfire but no letter. I guess some have it and some don't or maybe the early ones have it.

You can get the same thing for nothing here. Auto Color Library - The World's Largest Online Color-Chip Library

By the way points don't have to be replaced. If you want to be real pernickity you can take them out and rub them smooth on an oil stone and they are good as new. Not quite as good, is a points file or wet or dry sandpaper. Clean them and smooth them off and they are as good as new, for a while. Put a dab of ignition grease the size of a match head on the cam. They will last till the rubbing block wears away or you file the points completely off.

I knew an old time mechanic, born in 1900, who recalled scrapping Rolls Royces, Pierce Arrows etc in the thirties, when he worked in a junk yard. One he recalled was a Rolls that ran perfect but needed a clutch. The boss wanted $50 for it. After a couple of weeks with no takers, it was scrapped. In the meantime if they got a Model A that could be put back in commission, they had a quick sale. Not surprising if you think about it from the standpoint of someone who needed cheap transportation. This gentleman also scrapped millions of dollars worth of airplanes after WW2, literally. He told me that among others, he scrapped 4 brand new B24s that had delivery hours only and had never been put into service. On the other hand DC3s were seldom scrapped if they were in decent condition because there was a demand for them.

Heaters were just becoming popular then and there were many brands installed as accessories by local garages. Of course Packard dealers offered their own brands but many cars had Arvin, HaDees, South Wind and others. Being yours is a V12 if it had a heater it probably would have been a dealer installed genuine Packard accessory. I don't think the car factories were putting them in yet. A cheaper 110 or 120 would be more likely to have a non Packard accessory brand.

Slant sixes all used a Ball&Ball single barrel carb. Except for the optional Super Six engine of the late 70s/early 80s. They had a 2 barrel manifold, and a Carter 2 barrel like a 318 but modified to work on a slant 6. If it was mine I would get a rebuilt stock 1 barrel and be happy. You might be able to find the Super Six manifold someplace but the carb would need rebuilding anyway. If you do this get the intake and exhaust manifolds as an assembly if possible. The exhaust manifold is the same but it saves some work changing them over. Be sure you get the throttle linkage and air filter etc, they are unique to the Super Six. Personally I don't think it's worth the bother but just in case.

IND251 is an industrial engine of 251 cu in displacement. This is the same engine as used by Chrysler and DeSoto in the early 50s. Cylinders sleeved with hard chrome sleeves and other heavy duty improvements. Possibly the full flow oiling system too. If the oil filter is in a tower bolted to the block it's the full flow model, a real score. Is there a plate rivetted to the right side of the block or is the number off the stamped pad on the left front of the block? The C22 prefix indicates a 1939 Chrysler Windsor or Royal engine. This is the same block design as the other engine but 241 cu in. It has the same 4 1/2" stroke but only a 3 3/8 bore. This block can safely be bored to 3 7/16, like the later Chrysler and DeSoto and use standard size pistons. Then it will have the same 251 cu in displacement as the other engine. This one should have the partial flow oil filter with separate oil pipes. A good engine but not as heavy duty as the industrial model. Either of these will fit into any Canadian made, 6 cylinder Plymouth Dodge DeSoto or Chrysler from 1938 to 1959.

If you can find a 6 volt one, an electronic ignition module will solve your problems. You can use your points distributor and the points will last 50,000 miles. You won't need a condenser either. The points act as a switch, the ignition module does the work. A few years ago I found plans for a 6 volt electronic ignition on the web someplace. Unfortunately it was not for pos ground so I didn't bookmark it. You might still find it with a web search.