Wow, its been way to long since I updated this.
I haven't made tons of progress but I've moved it forward a little bit.


Not very exciting, but I fabbed a carb spacer plate to lift he carb a bit. My original carb was junk. I found a replacement from a 53 Olds but the linkage hits the manifold so I had to space it up. I cut one out of some 1/2" aluminum. No biggie.
While I was messing with the carb I decided to hack up the air cleaner. The original Packard unit is an oil bath with a huge sound deadener. I hacked off the oil bath part and sound deadener, cut things apart, found a paper element that I liked (mid 80's Mazda) fabbed a screen and then fabbed and end cap. I used the bottom portion of the original oil bath. With some massaging it came out pretty decent.


I fabbed an adapter to mount a T5 to the back of this Packard. I'll try and get some pics downloaded soon


Here's a couple of pics

 

That's awesome. I like the straight 8's. What is this arrangement going in?

 

Check out post#1...

 

Thanks guys.
Here's another pic of the oil bath air cleaner assembly after I disassembled it. Holy Cow! the Packard engineers went through a lot of trouble for some noise cancelling. I can't imaging that there would be a lot of air intake noise through an oil bath cleaner anyway.....lol

 

Now for the fun stuff


My engine package has an Ultramatic 2sp auto trans. I want a manual for thislittle truck so I rounded up a Packard manual bell housing and flywheel. Itturns out that Packard used their own tranny's up through the mid 50's. Thereisn't enough meat on the bell housing to adapt a modern trans. I was going totry and source a Packard 3spd manual but then decided a T5 5spd would make thisa nice driver. After a bit of research I decided I could build an adapter plateto make it work.
The Packard bell housing and most GM bell housings are roughly 6.25" deep,the T5's from S-10 trucks have an input shaft that is roughly 7.25" whichmeans I could use an S-10 T5 with a regular GM bell housing and have space tomake an adapter plate that is 1" thick.
I sourced a T5 from an 84 GMC S-15 ($100) and picked up a 1 piece aluminum GMbell housing (freebie). I had several large pieces of 1/2" steel plate soI was good to go. I managed to find an engineered drawing for a small blockchevy bell housing bolt pattern. No suck luck for the Packard.


My plan was to take a hunk of 1/2" plate, drill it to fit the Packard,take another 1/2" plate drilled to match the GM bell housing, then weldthem together. I started out making a poster board template to see if it wouldwork. Next I made a template from 1/8" plate before committing myself tothe 1/2" plate. I had several false starts trying to layout the Packardholes. To make the adapter plate more difficult the started on the Packardbolts to the bell housing. I made some custom, short transfer punches that Icould use on the Packard bell. It helped that the Packard locating dowels werealigned with the crankshaft centerline. Eventually I was able to lay it allout; the crankshaft centerline, the Packard locating dowels, the GM locatingdowels, all the bolt holes and the starter holes.
I got everything marked on both plates then tack welded both plates together todrill the holes. With the plates welded together I drilled all the locatingholes and the starter hole. It was a bit of a job using a 3 1/4" hole sawto go through and inch of steel.
To make a long story short. I drilled some holes, tapped some others, trimmedplates to size, welded them together. I had a minor set back when I bolted alltogether. I had to hack a huge chunk out of the bottom of the bell to clear theflywheel. I didn't realize that GM had different size bells. This weekend Ipicked up a 1 piece truck bell and everything is cool.
For the clutch I'm going to have my flywheel redrilled to accept a moderndiaphragm style pressure plate (thanks AlbuqF1 for the suggestion). I'll haveto decide if I want the 11" or the 10" clutch.
So, now I have a T5 mounted to the back of my Packard straight 8.


Now that I made it over this hurdle I think I can start fabricating a frame.The plan is a basic ladder style rectangular frame (from 2x3 tubing) with a 38Ford front x-member and a Model A rear x-member. I have the complete front axlefrom a 38 Ford with the wide 5 wheel pattern and a late 30's banjo rearend,also with the wide 5 pattern.

 

more pics of the process;

 

I still need to modify the dust shield and fab a dust shield to cover the starter nose cone, but its basically done;


edit: I don't know why some of the pics are sideways, they are OK on my computer but uploaded 90 degrees out....ugh

 

Bobby,

Some (me) would have stopped at the first hurdle with bolt up for the adapter plate.

This could morph into something .....well.....




Munster-ish

Keep up the good work.

Tom

 

Bobby patten it. Once you get it done everyone is going to start looking for Packard straight 8s !! I really want to see this when it's done. One of the most interesting builds I've seen in a long time. Keep up the good work and posting pics. Love it.

 

Sheesh, its been a tough year so far. In the schedule in my head I should have had a rolling chassis long before now. Life's been so busy that I've barely had time to touch my 49 F1 and even less time for this roadster project.


I did finally manage to set some steel in place so I could start mocking up a frame. I set the front and rear axles in place, set the body on, and sat inside it and took it for a test drive.....vroom, vroom, vroom.
I'm trying to decide which front crossmember to use, I have the 38 Ford crossmember that came with the axle and I have a Model A unit. The Model A unit is a bit cleaner looking, less bulky

 

Bobby, what look/style are you going for? If you want it really low, you will have to kick up(Z) the rear and use a suicide perch up front. If not, go with the A X member or make one.

Some guys will build a mock up frame from 2x4 lumber first, screw/bolt it together.....saves some pain if you need to make changes along the way. When you get it sorted, make the steel frame only once.

Have fun!

 

Not sure if this is what Scott was alluding to Bobby, but the mock-up makes sense.





Looking forward to this build coming to fruition. I admire your vision and fabrication skills.

 

I'm diggin this project Buddy. Bet Mamma loves it too.....

 

Scott, I'm going for an old timey, traditional sort of hot rod. Probably not lowered at all. I'm keeping the wide 5 axles (I will convert to juice brakes). I've been going back and forth between the traditional buggy spring in the rear or going with parallel leafs. I'm leaning more and more towards the parallel leaf rear suspension for several reason; 1st, since this will be a truck I can make the frame long enough to accommodate it (I'm not going to shorten the bed at all). 2nd, I'll have to convert to an open drive shaft and will lose the wishbone mounting point. 3rd, I won't have to worry about fabricating some radius arms. 4th, parallel leafs have been around since the dawn of time and are cheap and easy.


Great idea of mocking the frame up with 2x4 lumber! Thanks for the idea. Although this should be pretty easy, I'm basically copying a Model TT truck frame, just a basic ladder with parallel rails.


LOL!! Thanks, that made me laugh


LOL, she's been giving me grief about the growing pile of rusty junk for awhile now. Now that it at least partially resembles a vehicle she has eased up a bit. She's pretty tolerant of my hobby. Life is good with a good woman!


Bobby

 

I love it!!