packardaustralia.com

Dirtfarmer here. Canadian. I'm a little like the proverbial small boy who comes home with a puppy on a leash and tells his mother "Honest, he just followed me home." In MY case a "23 sport touring recently followed me home. There seems to be very little activity in this country (or the U.S.) in cars of this vintage these days, or so it seems. I get the impression that there are at least a few of these pre- classic Packards being used (and worked on) "down under". Am I correct?
This car is a six cylinder basket case that has been disassembled since the late 1960's. Any information that anyone can give me about this car would be welcome.

Dirtfarmer wrote:Dirtfarmer here. Canadian. I'm a little like the proverbial small boy who comes home with a puppy on a leash and tells his mother "Honest, he just followed me home." In MY case a "23 sport touring recently followed me home. There seems to be very little activity in this country (or the U.S.) in cars of this vintage these days, or so it seems. I get the impression that there are at least a few of these pre- classic Packards being used (and worked on) "down under". Am I correct?
This car is a six cylinder basket case that has been disassembled since the late 1960's. Any information that anyone can give me about this car would be welcome.

G'day "Dirtfarmer",

Great to have you on board here. Although not much activity yet on this site, as it's fairly new, it is starting to grow. As to your query about early 20's Sport Tourers there are a number in the Packard Club down-under and the owner of one of them David, known as Resto633 on the this site, has a '22. See his comments in this thread - http://packard.freeforums.org/when-did- ... s-t11.html. I'll be seeing David shortly at lunch and will mention your query which I'm sure he'll respond to, he's a good bloke. Another option you could explore is to post a query on packardinfo a US site with lots of activity, heres a link to it - http://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/. Let us know how the '23 progresses and post a pic please.

G'day Dirtfarmer,
I just read your post after talking to Mal today. I have a 1922/3 6 cylinder Packard Sport Tourer. I obtained it in the 1970s as a basket case. It has been on the road now since 1985. I have accumulated lots of information over the years which I would be happy to share with you. Perhaps it would be best if you let me know what you would like to know and we can go from there.
David
Australia[/b]

I hope that this stuff is not too technical for a "general discussion" forum. This is what I DO know about the Packard- taken from the build plate on the inside firewall and the body plate on the right rear sill.

"Made in U.S.A. Packard Motor Car Co. # U 31478A
Date 8- 23 'By Boston' "

Body is #224

Block casting date is 12- 4- 22
Timing chain cover casting date is 11- 21- 22
(Stamping on above cover is 12- 25- 23)
The number on the cam cover is # U20939

What exactly is meant by "By Boston"?
Until the relatively recent Auto Pact changed the rules, our Canadian cars were often different from their American cousins. I understand that Australian vehicles were the same way. Were any Packards assembled outside the U.S.? Were cars that were built in the U.S. for export any different than the U.S. domestic models? And how could I tell if this one was sold in Canada new or was imported sometime later?
And are there any other important numbers on the car that I haven't found yet?

Dirtfarmer and I can communicate by e-mail if this is not of interest for general discussion however it is great to be having some discussion about "real" Packards rather than those "modern (1930s +) ones that dominate discussion!!! .
The body number 224 confirms that your car is a "Sport" which is a 4 passenger tourer body quite different to the 5 & 7 passenger tourers of the same year. The "History of Packards" book states that the Sport was "the gem of the line". It further states that of the 13,655 First Series 6 cyl cars made up to 1922, 450 were Sport models.
As you know the early Packards are identified by Series not year. The First Series cars were made from April 1922 until Dec. 1923 and the motor numbers for the First Series ranged from 9000 to 35942. The Sport models carried on up to # 75,000 which covers First , Second & part of Third Series to about end 1925
The number U20939 that you say is on the cam cover sounds like the engine number but if so it is actually on the crankcase just above the front cam cover at the front of the engine. 20,939 makes it a First Series. Also if your has 2 wheel brakes then it is a First Series. From Second Series they had 4 wheel brakes.
The motor # on mine is U14936B and the chassis number is U14629, this is located on the top of the LHS chassis rail just forward of the firewall.

The build plate plate inside the firewall on my car states "Made in USA Packard Motor Car Company" Detroit Michigan U14847AR. I do not know what "By Boston" means.on yours. The cars exported to Australia were made in USA with right hand drive. The only difference between the Aust cars and those for US (apart from RH drive) is the early series surviving Packards in Aust have Rudge Whitworth splined hub wheels whereas I understand these are rare in US. The sales literature for the First Series Sport states that they had disc wheels , mine and others in Aust all have the Rudge Whitworth wheels. I do not know if the cars sold into Canada were different to the US cars.

Hope this gets you started. Look forward to more discussion.

David

resto633 wrote:Dirtfarmer and I can communicate by e-mail if this is not of interest for general discussion however it is great to be having some discussion about "real" Packards rather than those "modern (1930s +) ones that dominate discussion!!! .David

David and Dirtfarmer,

Could you please continue your communications in this public forum? Although very few of US are "privileged" to own a pre 30's Packard the insights, history, problems and fixes together with any other matters ARE of interest. Plus, and I think this is most important, any information, knowledge, etc put into the public domain will not be confined to an individual's or a few peoples memory. I implore you to continue to post here rather than in email or PM format. PLEASE?

Thank you for the information about series and about the numbers. My car has two wheel brakes so that confirms it to be first series. An incomplete parts chassis came as part of the deal when I bought the car. This chassis appears almost identical but it is longer wheelbase and it has brakes on the front axle. From your info that one must be a second series. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I could put front brakes on the sport touring for safety reasons. I believe that I could live with that modification because it would not require any permanent modifications that could not be changed back. Has anyone else tried to do this?
You mention Rudge wheels. I presume these to be wires? As a life long Model A Ford owner I only WISH that the Packard had wire wheels. The car does have a nice set of wood spoke (Canadian oak) wheels that were obviously re-built in the 1960's. They are 20 inch. The parts chassis has a badly rotted set of wood spoke wheels but they are about 23 inch. The higher wheels seem to be more in character for an early '20's car, I would think. Could the 20's be original to a first series car?

There were 4 wheelbase sizes in the First and other early series cars:
126" & 133" for the 6 cylinder cars. the Sport is 126"
136" & 143" for the eight cylinder cars.
I was once offered the front end off a second series for the front brakes. I looked at the modifications required to the centre cross shafts etc and it was all possible but decided against the conversion mainly because I like to keep them as authentic as possible. The 2 wheel brakes are OK except in the wet. We have done many miles in ours without incident. Second gear on a steep decent is a must. I have seen a first series roadster with front brakes so it can be done especially if you have all of the centre cross shafts and levers.
The correct wheel size for the First series 6's is 24" and the Rudge wheels are wires. It was common practice in Aust to convert to 20" wheels with "Balloon" tyres because the 24" tyres became hard to get. You are right about the higher tyres, the 20" wheels do not look right on a 1922/3 car. As for obtaining a set of Rudge wheels with the splined hubs etc, in the 30 odd years I have had mine I have never found a spare wheel and it has been the most common question from other restorers. The problem is the 24" Rudge wheels fitted some early Rolls Royce and Vauxhall 30/98 cars which were being collected before our Packards became of interest so the wheels were often missing when the Packards were found. Given that your chances of finding 24" Rudge wheels in Canada are slim to say the least, if it was mine I would do everything possible to find or make a set of the correct bolt on disc wheels. I can send you a sales photo of a Sport to confirm that they look right - the Rudge wheels look even better! If you check the wheelbase on the chassis with 23" wheels you might find it is a 136" or 143" from an eight cyl. The First series 8's were made from 1924 and they had 4 wheel brakes and if my memory is correct they had 23" wheels.
David

David and Dirtfarmer,

Thankyou for continuing to keep your dialogue open for all to enjoy and learn from. From my perspective it's always interesting to know what others are doing and how they solve their problems and such. And I'm sure it will be much appreciated by a potential wider audience. Again, thankyou

PS - Dirtfarmer, my first car, bought in partnership with my brother back in '64, was a '28 A Tudor. And can you post a pic or pic's of the Sport tourer?

Dirtfarmer here.

Yesterday morning my typing finger felt nimble so I wrote up a bit of the history of events that transpired around the time that I was dragging home all this Packard stuff. The story became rather lenthy and somehow I managed to use up almost all of my allotted (dial- up) line time limit. Then I hit the "submit" button and the whole kit and kaboodle disappeared into cyberspace. Duh.. As you may have guessed by now, my computing skills are somewhat lacking. I will try to send a picture to this site as soon as I can commandier some local ten year old to show me how to send it.
David, the "wheels" discussion is still not quite finished, from my end anyway. And tomorrow is another day.

Dirtfarmer wrote:Dirtfarmer here.Yesterday morning my typing finger felt nimble so I wrote up a bit of the history of events that transpired around the time that I was dragging home all this Packard stuff. The story became rather lenthy and somehow I managed to use up almost all of my allotted (dial- up) line time limit. Then I hit the "submit" button and the whole kit and kaboodle disappeared into cyberspace.........

Dirtfarmer,

Suggest instead of typing here in the forum do it in word or notepad, somewhere you can save as you go along, then copy it into here and post it. The same thing happens to me over in Packardinfo but I'm learning. And I notice you say "typing finger", I've got one of those too!

Welcome Dirtfarmer,

Great to have you apart of the forums.

It sounds like you have quite an interesting vehicle there. I agree with what Mal sugggests type into a word processor then paste all the text, that way the page won't time out and you loose all your work.

Hopefully in the next few days I should have some developments on methods for posting images. Though on this style of forum the system doesn't have the capacity to actually post images I will create a area when images can be uploaded and links created in posts to the image.

These early sports tourers in fact all the early packard of the 20's are a indication of how well these cars were built. Mr. Irwin down here is Aus has the oldest unrestored running 8 cylinder Sports Tourer in the world. If you ever get a chance to see that car... well in one word, "amazing" He also has a good knowledge and quite a bit of literature, when I see him next I will find out what the "By Boston could mean. From what I can gather on Australian exported vehicles sold by Kellow-Faulkiner of Melbourne when a vehicle was sold the use to stamp the plate of the date the car was purchased and imprint the dealerships name. This could be similar showing that the vehicle was sold in the month of August (8-23) by the Boston dealership. That could possibly be what it means, but i have no proof of that being correct

Kind regards

Mathew

Mathew
Since posting the "by Boston" question I have found out that Alvin T. Fuller of Boston had a major Packard dealership there for many years. This sounds like a good possibility, anyway.
Back to wheels. David. Your suggestion to look for a set of disks sounds good to me. There is an elephant in the room, however, in that I have six brand new 20" tires that I bought at Hershey last fall. At that time I had not brought the parts home yet and I did not realize that the 20's were not original. In my own defense, I did have the foresight to buy tires with the highest roling diameter possible, combined with the narrowest tread face.
As an aside. I'm wondering what kind of fellows and rims are on my car. The only I.D. showing seems to be "NOXAL" on the clamp-downs. Does anyone have any ideas?

Dirtfarmer,
All of the wheels I have seen that have been converted to 20" were wires so the conversion was simply a matter of respoking the original hub to a new rim drilled and dimpled to the required spoke pattern. NOXAL does not mean anything to me.
The tyres for the 1st Series 6 cyl cars are 500 : 24 which gives an outside diameter of 34". If your new tyres are 600 : 20 then the outside diameter will be 32" so they would gear it down a bit too much. Incidentally the Sport has a higher ratio differential than any of the other body styles, they they will cruise OK at 50 mph.
I will have to learn how to post a photo so I can send a picture from the sales brochure showing the Sport with the disc wheels.
David

David et al
The "new" tires are Denman 600x20. They have a deflated rolling dia. of exactly 33 inches. In this case every inch counts, I would think. I have to wonder, though, if the "balloon" tires will lose more dia. to the weight of the car than the older, higher pressure 24" tires.
One thing about this site- it seems to stimulate discussions. A friend tells me that his "29 Chev has "Noxal" hardware on the wheels. The Canadian Chev has 20" demountable disk wheels- unlike the U.S. cars that used 21". That's where the similarity ends because I have 2 more spokes per wheel and the rims are wider. The reason that I am persuing this is that I still need at least one more rim. Perhaps I will sandblast one of mine to see if a maker's name appears. But surely that is doing it the hard way. It is almost Hershey time again and I will be looking for 20's as well as a set of 24" disks. The way that they are tightening up the U.S.border crossings, this could be my last Hershey trip. I hope not.