now this is what I call a KUSTOM. totally awesome! You my friend are a true artest. It bugs me to hear guys say the word custom and no body mods were made.Yours is real.
I’ve come this far.... may as well go all the way. Gonna build whole inner cowl from stainless and maybe engine turn it once done. If it’s good enough for Tesla.... it’s good enough for me.
More stainless than a Maytag washing machine. I talked to my mate Jason who does engine turned dashes and if I’m lucky he’ll make me a jig to engine turn the cowl. That can happen later. Got to put it all together again.
Thanks Nick. You’ll have to drop by in the roadster one of these days. Haven’t seen it finished. Bring John with you so I can butter him up to rebuild the gearbox.
Cowl is now bolted up and inner sill screwed up and square. Nice to finally have clean metal to work with. Cowl face is moved back 4 inches yet floor area remains the same. Toeboard is steeper. Nice and rigid. The rest should be like Meccano.
Long afternoons and the weekend to get the floors cut and folded up and screwed down. Work is back to normal so won’t be as many Packard play hours but the hardest work is now done. Found a replacement of the roof mech that I threw away. Happy Days. Practiced doing some engine turning on my drill press, rough and quick but I’ll make a proper jig and give the cowl a go on the weekend.
You'll be in good company with the engine turned stainless. I'm sure you're aware of how Bugatti and Alfa used it, but this one is under the hood of a supercharged Duesy Model J with Brunn Riviera coachwork. Yeah, every bright surface. Rad, huh?
Thanks Highlander, just the inspiration I have been looking for. I need to put a few dimples in the firewall and am tossing up to do the engine turning prior or after. I think prior. Got the engine out last evening. I’ll drop in a running 39 Six initially, till I can afford to do the 8. But it’s definitely getting the 8. I’m onto a running Super 8 engine that was only a suburb away till recently. Got given away. Trying to negotiate now Got some rust repairs to do to the front crossmember and now I can get to it. I’ll get the gearbox out next and get it overhauled.
I'm rootin for ya on the Super 8. If it's a 356 or 359 you'll think you died and went to Packard Heaven! Arguably Packard's best engine ever, yes, above their mighty 12. Even if you end up with a 327 (48 and up I think) they too are worthy. Pulled those ugly bath tubs rather well
Got the engine apart and Piston’s out. Bottom end is good even reusable Valves need doing and bore has been sleeved ( a few were badly pitted). Probably back in the day when oversized Pistons weren’t available. They just sleeved them and reused original pistons. I checked the vin against the Packard database and it’s the original 5 main 282 120 engine so regardless of the fact that another 9 main Super8 engine might show up, I think this deserves doing. I’ll clean it up and get it crack tested first and go from there. Will have to bore it out past the sleeves, and either find new pistons or resleeve worst bores.
Don't bother with hardened valve seats, not needed. It's a deep dig to verify but past research noted that Packard used a high nickel iron in their castings, essentially "cast steel" when compared to other's engine blocks. If lots of miles are the goal nothing more than stainless valves to stave off seat pitting from lead-free fuels. Additives or the occasional use of a couple gallons of race or aviation fuel helps too, and not needed every fill up. Still, if you do get a "deal" on a running 9 main GO FOR IT! I just sold a 47 Super Clipper last year with the 9 main 356 AND overdrive. Talk about heaven, and it was a big heavy car...
I’m on a sharp learning curve. I’d love to put a blower on it one day. Missed out on the perfect m90 Eaton for $75 yesterday ( Damn fool am I, he who hesitates....) I took the gearbox over to my hotrod guru mate John, he looked at it for a second and said a T5 will nearly bolt straight up. He had 3 littering under his bench, discovered they belong to another mate who rang me 20 minutes later.... talk about synchronicity. He only wants one out of the 3 and I can have the other two. There’sa Commodore one with the gate further back down the case which would be perfect for my moved 11 inches back seating position. We’ll see ! I do like the idea of keeping it 39 running gear but remember I’m also building the Packard 6 28 model A boattail and 30 roadster with the Packard dash and grille. Better pull my finger out and keep building.
Decided to do the fit up of steering prior to engine turning firewall. Fitted a nice alloy (which I’ll polish) Borgeson joint that came off the Saab Aero donor car that provided the convertible top. My mate turned up two steel adapters to fit the original steering shaft. Got a nice stainless tube from the scrap yard for the column.
Scored a roll of SS flex pipe yesterday. I lifted off the heavy cast iron exhaust manifold the other day and thought I need to make stainless extractors. Have some mandrel Bent pool handrails in 35mm stainless that are perfect to cut and shut. The manifold has 8 outlets so 4 pipes on the right side of the hood might be nice.
I used pool hand rails on my A to fabricate exhaust. You can weld it with 309 L stainless filler, I back purged mine when I TIG it up. Also 309 L works great on cast iron repairs, but, its really hard to drill (Carbide Drill) and you can only tap it a 1/4 turn at a time. I tool a carbon rod and threaded it and threaded it into the broke off boss on my motor and built it up then all you have to do is clean the threads out. The first time I did that I didn’t use a carbon rod bolt thats when i found out just how hard it’s to drill and tap. It welds just like spreading butter. Hope this helps. Frank P.S. love the steering wheel
I finally got a chance to remake the cowl sides today as I stretched the cowl another 4 inches back and laid the screen a further 5 degrees from my first iteration. It’s much better balanced now. The transition into the rolled sills was a little tricky but I’m very happy with the look. Tomorrow arvo I can roll the edges. Getting close to door time.
Cowl edges stepped. I decided to roll the lower sill to give a little more drama. May need a little tweaking still. But very swoopy.
The Cadillac is safely stored across the road. Once I get the Packard up to the same stage I’ll do body and paint together.... and won’t think about starting another project....( famous last words)
I am really like the Cad. Thanks for replying I really enjoy following your thread thanks for letting me tag along. Frank