Vintage Vehicle Club

of Australia (1919-1930) Inc.

1929 Roadster Packard Restoration

by the owner

I have been a member of VVCA for a few years now but apart from attending an occasional meetings I have not participated in any other events.  My restoration projects take up nearly all of my spare time.

I was actually on the first and third VVCA tours and had a great time on both.  I always intended to apply for membership but never got around to it until I received an invitation to join at a Motorfest a few years ago.  My car on the early tours was a 1926 Buick and I have very good memories of those tours and trouble free runs with the car.  It had a very low diff ratio and would climb a brick wall in top gear but was revving its innards out at 40 mph.  I sold the car some time later to fund the restoration of truck loads of junk which, after 10 years hard work produced a very nice 1922 Packard Sport tourer.

Incidentally the word Sport in this case means lower more sporty looking body with a higher ratio diff, that's about as sporty as a Packard got in those days.  It certainly cruises more easily than the Buick.

After finishing the restoration of the 1922 Packard I declared to anyone who would listen that I would never restore another car, it was just too much work and time.

Well that was fine for a while until I read a for sale add in the SMH for a 1929 straight eight Packard Roadster.  After trying to put it out of my mind for a few days I rang the owner and within 24 hours Veronique and I were on our way to Adelaide to have a look.

The previous owners had collected virtually all of the hard to get bits and the Roadster body work was rust free and pretty straight. A parts car was included, this had been a 1929 Packard 7 passenger sedan that had been cut down to a truck.  The parts car and the roadster were mechanically identical and between the two cars there were enough parts to rebuild the Roadster.  I was hooked, a deal was done.

Freight to Sydney was arranged and both cars arrived without problems.  I was building a shed at the time so the cars sat under tarps for a while and when the shed was finished they were moved in to sit for another year or two.  During that time it became obvious that the rear dickey seat area of the Roadster had been rebuilt and was a totally botched job.  I should have picked that up on the first inspection but I had rose coloured glasses on at the time, all sounds familiar I am sure.

Anyway, around that time my daughter Amy was born and there was no spare time for restoration.  I took a couple of weeks off work when we brought her home to help out and one day when the house was full of mothers, mothers in-law and various other female advisers on baby care, I decided I was not needed and escaped to my beloved workshop to make a start on the Packard.  I mention this only because Amy turned 16 last year when I finally finished and registered the Packard Roadster.

There were many times in that 16 years that other priorities intervened but that is how long it took bring the remains back to a car as close as I could get it to "as new".

The body work was a major challenge because a previous restorer had re-timbered the body and re-skinned the dickey seat area, I learnt later that this had all been done to create a pattern from which another car was made.  The timber looked as though it had come from an old paling fence and the new metal work had been arc welded to the original and buried in up to one inch of bog.

Every piece of original timber was gone and had to be replaced without the benefit of any original rotted pieces.  The car had also been in major smash that resulted in one side chassis rail being considerably shorter than the other and the body had been repaired to fit so that one side door opening was narrower than the other.

I repaired the chassis using a section from a donor chassis and a jig for alignment.  Then with a straight square chassis the long task of rebuilding the body to original dimensions obtained from other cars, began.  It took years and would have been beyond me except for time spent previously at Meadowbank Tech learning panel beating and hand-forming.

Some time after obtaining the remains of these two cars a friend (Bryan Belcher) from NZ was visiting and we were inspecting the spare parts car. The body had been cut away from behind the front doors and a table top truck created.  Bryan told me that the body of an identical 7 passenger Packard sedan was stored behind his clubhouse in NZ and was available for a nominal contribution to the club.  With much help from Bryan and other NZ club members this body was transported to Auckland and freighted to Sydney.

It had been in the open for many years and the rust was very bad.  I knew this from the photos that were sent but as usual it was far worse than expected and in fact the whole body was on the verge of collapsing when it arrived.  However it was the correct body for the parts car.  Now, having a body for the second car, the problem of finding enough parts for two cars had to be solved.

In order to have any prospect of restoring the sedan to its former glory the following parts were needed: headlights, tail light, instruments, horn, inner and outer door handles, hub caps, wheels, radiator and surround, carby, generator, starter, distributor, water pump diff, tailshaft, bumpers, bonnet, rear guards, folding rear seats, plus numerous other mechanical parts. Looking at the list of missing parts I wondered what possessed me to bring the body over from NZ.

The only practical source for so many hard to get parts for a Packard is USA.  So in 1991, with two other Packard guys, each with a long wish list, we went to Hershey.  It proved to be gold mine for each of us.  We studied the program on the night before the start and highlighted every vendor with Packard parts.  After four exhausting days I had found just about everything on my list that could be practically brought home by plane.  The others were equally successful.  Prices were generally reasonable and the exchange rate was much better then.  It was an unforgettable experience.

Two of us went back again in 1999 and found some more valuable bits but the vintage parts on offer were far less.  I believe that vintage stuff is almost non-existent now at Hershey which is understandable when you consider that rather than cart parts across the county to the swap meet they can be sold on e-bay.  The problem for buyers is that the prices have gone through the roof compared to the prices we paid in 1991.

The heavy missing bits such as diff, radiator and surround, wheels etc have been found locally.  About the only significant part now missing for the second car is a tailshaft and if all else fails I will make one with modern universal joints.

The body from the NZ sedan sat in my workshop for many years and I would look at the extent of the rust and wonder if I would be able to hand form and replace all of the rusted sections.  I received a lead on one folding rear seat and when I contacted the owner in QLD he told me that had had found the remains of a 7 passenger sedan like mine that had been rolled into a gully then stripped of everything of value.  However he had rescued the whole rear section including floor, inner guards and one folding seat.  He sent photos which showed only minor damage to the floor and panels and no rust.  I immediately hitched the box trailer and set off to Brisbane and brought all of the remains back.  Finding the seat was great (I had already found one other) but the panels were a huge bonus.

I stopped all work on the Roadster for a few months and cut out all of the rust from the NZ body and repaired it with the floor and panels from the QLD remains.  I then removed the table top from the parts car and offered the NZ body up to the front section of the parts car.  It all fitted well and with a sound repaired shell and virtually all of the parts for a second car, restoration of the Packard seven passenger sedan was now looking to be a feasible proposition.

I would love to be able to conclude by reporting on the completion of the sedan as well as the roadster but that is still a long way off.  I am presently nearing completion of the timber work.  I intend to take the body to the stage where all timber has been replaced or repaired, the doors hung and fitted and body primed for long term storage. It should be at that stage in about another year.  Then I can start on the mechanicals in earnest but it will take many years.

The object is to finish this car before reaching my "use-by" date, I am hopeful that retirement in the not too distant future will make that possible.

When it is finished if I ever look at another restoration project I expect someone to have the good sense to lock me away from temptation.  I think Veronique can be relied upon to deal with that!

Then again I have always lusted after a Jaguar.  Maybe a good rust free sound bodied XJ6 just in need of mechanical maintenance would be fun.  Is there any cure for this disease?

David McC
Jan 2005

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