New Driver Questions

[55PackardGuy]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That is a very nice car with a very unusual interior treatment.</div></div>

I feel worse every minute about losing that 400. I found the old "title stub" with the name of the new owner a few years ago and thought about trying to get in touch, but wouldn't you know I can't find it now. Oh well, it's a "pipe dream."

[Bill Kennedy]

Guy:

I purchased this car at an auction early this year. I had wanted a mid-fifties car because when I was a teenager we used to cruise the drive in restaurants in Pittsburgh in a 1955 Chevy (this is definitely NOT a Chevy!!!). I also wanted a Packard because I was very interested in the history of Packard (and Studebaker) so when this thing became available I saw it as an opportunity to get both a 55 and a Packard. What attracted me to the car was it has a very straight body (first thing I look for when I see a car). The paint has some minor problems but nothing that cannot be ignored indefinitely and most of the problems I can fix myself by filling in nicks and wet sanding.

Before the auction I had taken digital photos under the chassis and some semi-hidden areas to see if I could spot any rust--could not. Have since had the thing gone over by a shop nearby and it is essentially rust free, although we did see an one small area when some repair had taken place a while back--but a professional repair with fabrication of a new panel as opposed to bondo.

I have had the interior door panels off and the inside of the doors are spotless with no evidence of any prior damage.

The undercarriage is a mess in terms of 50 years accumulation of dirt and grease--which over time I will detail. Also, while I am making some modifications I am keeping almost all of the old parts (e.g. just replaced the interior mirror with a modern reproduction made by one of the Packard clubs but the old one will go into a box for some future owner to make the decision as to whether or not to put it back on). I am replacing the brake lines with stainless steel ones but will not keep the old lines. Most of my modifications are simple bolt ons and easily reversed--I would make no permanent modifications.

The last owners were Charles and Charlene Kirkman, 1901 West Louise, Grand Island, Nebraska. I found insurance cards in the glove compartment going back to 1992 with their name on it. I have tried to locate them but someone else now lives in that house and internet searchs turn up nothing--so I assume at least Charles is deceased or perhaps retired to Florida and left no easily followed trail. When I bought the car it ran but the license plates on it has expired in Sept. 1997. I took it to a shop that had a mechanic old enough to be experienced with Rochester carbs and he found two spark plug wires switched, the water pump "iffy", the oil pressure sender leaking and the accelerator pump on the carb bad. We are in the process of fixing all these little problems (along with replacing the fuel pump just in case). WE also had to make a small repair to one panel--a scrach about 8 inchs long that I suspect happened at the auction because the height of the scrach was the same as the tent pegs in the show tent. I go to auctions often and they are terrible places for cars--have talked to several people who have had their cars receive minor damage as a result of the cars being suffled around in tight areas.

Sorry for the long winded answer--but it sound like this is not the same car.

[Bill Kennedy]

B. H.

RE: "WRT installing A/C, though it's not my name on the title to this car, I would prefer to see a factory unit, but it is hard to submit to tearing up the dash on such a nice-looking car (but they did exactly that in the dealerships).

I thought about that but there were several problems. I tried very hard to find a parts car with A/C--could not. One yard I talked to said they had 78 1955/56 Packards and only two had A/C but the parts were long gone. The second problem was who to rebuild the Leigh compressor if I found one. This compressor has a front seal made by having two lapped surfaces and not many people can repair a leak in that area. The third problem is I do not have a source for R12 and am not too excited about paying the price required on the open (black) market.

The decision to install a modern unit really became one of practicality. I also am not convinced that the vents on top of the dask that Packard used were an effective design--let alone the problems involved to reproducing that on a car that did not come that way from the factory.

[Twitch]

Ya know guys, it's just really worth having Packards. Aren't they cool!? <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />I just got back from a large, monthly swap meet in Long Beach that has classics/rods for sale too. While I saw some really nice all original cars like beautifully restored 39 Buick and a 32 Ford Roasdster hotrod, there were no Packards except for mine in the parking lot!

Spent $5 and got a small 6v/12v 4/6/8 cyl. tach I want to mount non-permanently below dash- can't stand to drive any car without a tach any more....

[Guest imported_Packards1]

Bill, I met Charles Kirkman at his home about 30 years ago. He has passed away. He was a fine gentelman and a very dedicated Packard owner. I did not see your car at his home. By the way I had a clone to your car that I bought from the original owner in 1976. Anyway, Charles had a beautiful 1950 Packard Custom-8 and an all original 1939 Packard 12 which he let me drive. I can guarentte you that your 1955 was in good hands while Charles owned it. Joel

[Bill Kennedy]

Joel:

Thank you for this information. How did you happen to meet Charles? Any idea when he passed away?

It's nice to know the car was owned by a serious collector.

[55PackardGuy]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">By the way I had a clone to your car that I bought from the original owner</div></div>

Well, now there are three that we know of! What an interesting coincidence.

Bill,

Thanks for your detailed reply. It's great to get some more history. As soon as you said it was virtually rust-free, I knew it couldn't be our old Minnesota car. It had been to the body shop a couple of times for major repairs due to rust.

[Bill Kennedy]

Brian:

RE: "As I recall, the mounting bracket was one of the obstacles, but PackardV8 ssems to have solved that."

What has PackardV8 come up with?

[Bill Kennedy]

OK--I remember these pictures. I was confused because the sentence about mounting brackets came after a sentence about vents and I thought you were referring to mounting brackets for the inside of the car.

[Guest Rojo22]

Well I took some pictures this weekend of the cleaning efforts on the 55 Constellation. My thanks to the person who recommended the greased lightning product. It did really well at cleaning a good bit of the mold and mildew off the vinyl. I am going to treat the seats with a second round next weekend in the hopes of getting a few more spots off. Only the really bad stuff left stains. I will post a series of pictures of the inside. This picture will be of the overall interior before I did anything to it......

[Guest Rojo22]

Here is another interior shot...The code on the interior trim is 57....

[Guest Rojo22]

Up close shot of the "paisley" black leather on the seats....I am open for identification if someone wants to tell me what it is.....

[Guest Rojo22]

I took the back seat out and got it pretty clean. Now I need to get the back of the seat out and clean it as well....

[Guest Rojo22]

Here is a picture of the outside of the car. She aint no beauty queen, but she runs good, and she is just big enough to hold me and my grin in.....

[Guest Rojo22]

Here is a picture of the other side....and by the way, that really is NOT a 1953 you see sitting next to it...like I keep telling my wife, there is only one car in the driveway....LOL....the 1953 is very interesting though, and came with factory air which is still all there.....

[Guest Randy Berger]

Code 57 is black cloth and yellow imitation leather. Either the book is wrong or the interior was replaced at one time. We need to contact the Packard employee who wrote a good article for The Cormorant and described various interiors. That wasn't all that long ago and he may have the answer for this interior.

YFAM, Randy Berger

[Guest Rojo22]

Thanks Randy. I have a suspicion on the "white" seats. The stuff on the back seat could be the palest yellow if I had to guess. The black "leather" part of the seats is different than anything I have ever seen before. I have seen some black cloth with silverish thread on some of the accent pieces on the back seat, but that is all the cloth I have seen in the car. I will take some close up shots of it this weekend and post here. I really like the white and black combo though.....

[Guest imported_Packards1]

I spent 2 days in Grand Island on my way to Denver for the National PAC meet. I believe he passed away about 10 years ago. He was totally dedicated to preserving his packards in original condition. A fine man.

[Mr.Pushbutton]

My guess on the "Paisley" material is that the original fabric inserts were "shot", and someone went to the local crazy Irving's fabric mart and said "hey, this is close enough!"

[Mr.Pushbutton]

Re: Randy"s post about the "Packard employee" who wrote the article about Packard interiors--Could that have been Ed Cunningham?(former head of interior design for PMCC) Ed was a young man in his Packard days, and is still around, and can tell you exactly what was used on each V-8 model (and what was NOT). He used to live around the Detroit area, but has moved someplace in the southeast. Look him up in the PAC directory.

[Guest imported_Speedster]

Yes, either that or they pulled it off one of the office couches when the plant was closing. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

[Guest Rojo22]

OUCH....The couch thing stung a little bit...LOL....Well I will trudge on with the cleaning and dusting off of the old gal this weekend. I will wire brush the old rims and repaint them as well. The whitewalls look great!

[heidigirl]

detailers clay might be able to pull out the remaining blemishes on your seats. depending on the type of material, sem sol 38371 used very sparingly will also work.

[Guest Rojo22]

Thanks Hiedigirl for the information. Where can I go to get some of clay stuff? I am not in the business so I am unsure of what Sem Sol 38371 is? Hate to sound like a NOOB, but I would really like to use some of it.

[Guest imported_Speedster]

I've only seen detailers Clay (block and spray) used to clean Paint, before waxing, but I guess it could be used for vinyl. (Eastwood has them)

I've also seen shoe and leather dye used for badly discolored vinyl, if you can find some to match. I used leather dye to change some brown Cadillac seats to black, for my '34 Streetrod. (It worked great) <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I'm not sure what Sem Sol is either, but if it's a solvent, I would try it on a hidden area before on an exposed area.

[Guest Randy Berger]

I used SEM vinyl dye to refresh the color in the package tray. It worked well and that is one area that gets sun-bleached.

YFAM, Randy Berger

[Guest imported_PackardV8]

I've used PERMANENT felt tip markers to recolor (dye) things like carpet (on the Exec) and other items. Even used it in place of prussian blue for fitting parts. Only problem is that it takes alot of markers for a small section of carpet. It turned out pretty good tho.

[Guest imported_Speedster]

Here's a website describing different types of automotive vinyl paint and dyes.

Scroll down to vinyl paint and dyes section:

(Has anyone tryed the Sherwin-Williams vinyl Paint?)

http://www.colorguardfloors.com/guardfloors/paint.htm

[Guest imported_Speedster]

Here's another site with SEM spray vinyl dyes:

Pretty good color selection. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I called tech support about this and they said that 2 bucket seats takes about 3 cans or large dash takes 1 can and Said color change was very good, Could have brown seats and change them to white with 2 to 3 coats.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/yourautotrim-store/semdye.html

[heidigirl]

sem sol is available at the automotive paint supply houses. they will have the detailers clay as well. pep boys, kragen, etc. carry the clay products also.

[heidigirl]

rick, you are correct. sem sol is a solvent. essentially, it is a wax and grease remover used for paint prep and should be treated with caution.

[Guest RADIODOCTOR]

Bernardi,

I repair vintage auto radios here in Oregon.

regards,

Barry

radiodoc@rvi.net