1915 packard chassis

Thought this may be of interest to some members,
Last year i found through a facebook site here in nz an old truck chassis that had been made into a farm trailer as what happened to a lot of bigger early trucks
The packard was used at a local district garage and then ended up on a south island high country station, as a fencing trailer ive since bought the chassis which is in remarkable condition apart from the wooden wheels which are buggered,
The station owner told me the history of this truck and also told me that the original engine was found and bought by a museum which im now negotiating to purchase, i do have most of the other parts to rebuild this truck, now only a gearbox to find,
I have i/d this as a 4 ton model D packard, model D’s were only made for one year (1915 to 16) but apart from having a 3 speed gearbox use the same engine and mechanicals as the model E of the similar size,
some pics attached






Cheers mike

Hi Mike, another great find. For help in working out what to do with the wheels have a look at my 1911 Dennis topic on HMVF (if you haven't already done so. At least you have the steel bands and tyres which is a head start on mine!

Talking to Packard blokes one of the problems Packard had in the early days was their unique hardware including bolt sizes and threads. Not impossible to overcome but a pain in the a... for a restorer.

What a great truck to get restored though! You can see the superior quality of the construction from the photos compared to similar vehicles of the period.

Lang

What a great find and good on you for b iting the bullet and making it your project restoration. Hopefully the Museum will see the sense of selling the engine off to you for the project.
The tyres are cushion forklift tyres and are available but are pricey.

Do you have or can you source a diff centre for it?

I would imagine they would be just about impossible to replicate.

Note the stone company and Russian Army Packards are right hand drive. Packard's first left hand drive car was 1915.

This chart is interesting of the top selling brands 1910 to 1920. This is domestic sales, the hundreds of thousands of military vehicles are extra though I suspect Packard were counted in hundreds in that area.



In WW2 Rosie the Riveter was actually a Packard Rosie who worked on the Packard Merlin engine line for the P-51 Mustangs (reputed to be a much better quality engine than the Rolls Royce version and they did not leak like the RR). They built many marine petrol engines as did Cadillac for landing craft and work boats.

Hi yes i had been told about the different thread size packard used, 18 tpi from memory
Ive also got my own tyre press and are in the process of having new hoses made and i also need to fabricate some push blocks, ive allready got a model D packard which has the longer wheelbase
with that truck came a spare engine and brass radiator plus a few other bits and pieces, the pictures of the restored packards above are owned by dave lockard in pensylvania, dave encouraged me to buy my first packard and has helped out with some other parts and literature, also through dave ive met a few other packard truck owners and i have bought the remains of a shortened model E packard which had a diff and steering box, sheetmetal etc, this i hope to ship back here later this year,
finding the correct gearbox is going to be a challenge, if i cant find one i could use the 4 speed one i have for now?

Here are a couple of beauties available on KIJIJI in Canada (Canadian dollars about the same as Australian dollars).

Just pulled this off the shelf. Winter shutter louves for Packard. Looks pretty early. Works via a bi-metallic spring and closes the shutters like a B model Mack. I poured ice water then hot water on it and the shutters opened and closed perfectly.







This ad is for later tall radiators


I found a patent for the Winterfront shutter in early 1900 given to William Durant the man who had as much or more influence on the car industry as Henry Ford. He was a horse drawn vehicle builder who teamed with Dort (first car to cross Australia from south to north). His first purchase was Buick the biggest seller pre-1909, then Olds, ,Chevrolet, Cadillac and Oakland/Pontiac. In the biggest bad decision in history he raised $8 million to buy Ford in 1909 but his board could see no future in Ford and voted against the deal. He was manoeuvred out of General Motors and started his own Durant/Star company in the 20's