My brother found these on the interweb, a cheaper route to go with my 49 packard, lot less work, staying with the original equipment, looks like a lot of fun, just hope it doesn't rain (or snow) up here in wisconsin!
Please tell me you're kidding right now right? A beater packard cool, a doodle bug/farm hack not so much.
I think you guys misunderstand!He will take the engine and trans from the bodiless chassis and put it into his Packard.
While growing up we had a doodle bug/farm hack to run around in, helped learned how to drive in that thing, but NO that is not the way we are going. My brother and I are just looking at all our options and he found these pics on the interweb.. it does give me a good look at the frame, and I hope mine is as good.. I started with the idea of swapping out the original frame and suspension for a 1990 cadillac rear wheel drive frame and suspension, along with installing a big block olds I have, but the more time I spend on here and talking it over with my brother, we decided on keeping the straight eight (if we can get the motor turning over) and the original stock frame. We will probably exchange the rearend for more modern, as my brother said it has split axles? or whatever, learning this stuff as I go along, and more than likely will stay with the stock front suspension, just rebuilt it with parts from Kantor, except we really would like to upgrade to front discs and possibly rear discs, we will put in a whole new brake system. Anyways they are cool pictures but really not the path, just thought a few of you would get a kick out of them..
Be perfect to take to the Zoo area at Brainerd International Raceway this weekend for the NHRA drags. It would blend right in with the other exotic vehicles in attendance.
Honestly go covert on the AACA forums and go to Packard section and tell them you want to do a resto and a good engine will usually come out of the woodwork pretty quick for not to much dough. Try get the biggest CI motor possible. As most of them bolt right to any of the packard transmissions of that era.Parts are easy to fab for a Packard straight 8 to make some easy go fast goodies. Milled heads and multi carb intakes and split manifolds and headers are popular non invasive tricks you can start with. As for the front and rear disc brakes I'm pretty sure a late model b body(93-96 cadillac fleetwood,buick roadmaster,caprice, or olds vista cruiser will have a just about the right width rear axle that shouldn't be hard to swap discs onto. The front is a whole other deal. Besides a subframe or fatman kit I'm not sure where to go for a packard of that era. Again lots of good info to be had from the AACA site.
thanks for the advice and info, may have to try that site, but we haven't given up on my motor yet, as far as brakes, discs in back sounds good but you really need to have the right master cylinder and setup, front discs may be a dream, still researching..
Find out if you can machine your spindles to the right size to take another off the shelf disc from a common car like say an 87 caprice? Then the bracket to mount the caliper would be an easy fab if you didn't get fancy with it and took your time. Do the same for the master find an off the shelf part that works. If you do a front and rear disc your choices might be a little more limited but if you do the front disc rear drum setup options are endless. Especially with an adjustable prop valve. Ill see if I can find some disc swap info for you. Surprised there isn't any here but I haven't looked yet either.
Friend of mine rebuilt the engine in his 54 Packard. Said it cost less than $1000 for parts. I don't think he had to bore the block or turn the crank. New rings, bearings, timing chain , gaskets etc and it was good to go for another 100,000 miles.
I wouldn't obsess about discs on the rear. Unless your going NASCAR with it, you will never notice the difference in braking ability. Fronts are the place to spend your time and money. I don't know much about Packards, (other than quality wise they would put a Caddy to shame) but I suspect that they had some pretty sturdy suspension components, spindle and bearing sizes might be more in line with pick-up truck components. Remember, in a panic situation, that too much braking on the front axle will make you plow straight ahead, (and a seat belt will save you) too much on the rear axle and the car will come around sideways and roll you (or you get T boned)
finally got car on hoist, frame and existing suspension look alot stouter than I thought, so will be going with stock for the most part. The rearend will be updated, will be going with newer automatic tranny, (it looks like my stock standard packard tranny has the overdrive option on it and existing clutch is in rough shape). Still trying to figure out how to get discs on front end somehow econimically(safety). We pulled the head on the existing straight eight, some corrosion and and lots of carbon junk. We can only get the engine to turn over manually using the flywheel and screwdriver about 15 degrees and then it stops, we can back it up about the same 15 degrees and it stops again. With the head off we observed that all but the fifth piston moved some, it seems that one is stuck solid, maybe at the bottom of the stroke, We just could not get it to move, we filled cyclinder space with acetone/oil mix to see if we could de-rust it enough to make it move but no luck, none of the mixture drained off thru the ring/piston so maybe block/piston/rod may not too far gone for my budget? May have to go back to the big block olds which I have al lready to go with most of the parts bought already? We haven't given up on the packard straught eight just yet but not looking good with my limited funds...
Odins....Mister Bacon posted this thread almost 6 years ago and hasn't posted anywhere on the HAMB since January of '16. I have to wonder if he even has this Packard anymore.
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