Day 585, Sunshine and a little detail work.

Wide whitewalls scrubbed clean

I couldn't wait to get up and work on the Packard.  There was so much to do and I wanted to jump in get to work.  Christian came to help and the first thing we did was start unloading the car to see what was there.  We emptied the trunk, carefully examining exactly what we had.  The last thing to took out of the trunk was the carpeting.  The carpet was from a house and with everything out, I could examine the floors.  There are numerous rust holes and a new floor pan is going to be in order at some point, but it's not too bad.

Visor hinge before polishing

The one thing I was very concerned about was the yellowed whitewall tires.  I was pretty sure they were not going to be brought back to white and they would have a yellow cast to them, no matter how hard I scrubbed them.  To my surprise, with my trusty SOS soap pads, I was able to get them white.  With the wire wheels the whitewalls looked spectacular.

Visor hinge after polishing

Christian went through the glove box and examined everything carefully.  There is a lot of miscellaneous spare parts, screws and knobs.  I grabbed a rag and some chrome polish and just started in on the dash.  There was just so much to do, it was hard to focus on one small piece at a time, but that is what I did.  I started with horn ring and got it looking like new and then moved on to each knob, the radio, mirror, window trim, sun visor hinges, ash tray doors, step plates, wing windows and on and on. 

Ashtray before polishing

Ashtray after polishing.

Christian left around 1 pm to get some of his own work done. I spent the entire day polishing and cleaning.  I vacuumed out the trunk and the rest of the car.  I even removed the back seats, so I could clean out a large mouse nest  With each project I would see ten more things that needed to be done and I just focused on cleaning the car one project at a time.  I love the mindless detail work and the gratification of making one little part look like new.  The most dramatic transformation were the hinges on the sun visors and the rear ash trays.  What I had thought would be impossible to clean turned out to look incredible and very presentable when I was finished.

The weather was perfect for working outside and even though the top wasn't working on its own, I was still able to put it down by hand.  The car looks awesome from about 20 feet and I was happy to have it.  There is something very unique about 50's car styling.  They have a grace, simplicity and elegance all to their own.  The 53 Packard is a very tall car and the stance of the car is very pronounced.

With the top down, it was easy to get in and out of the back seat, and I started the process of conditioning the original leather seats.  I have a fantastic leather conditioner that I use on the F150's King Ranch leather and I knew it would work on this old dried out leather.  I could tell the leather was drinking it up and I continued to feed it several times to soften it up.  The seats are going to need some attention with many of the seams pulling apart, but for the most part the seats are still very usable.

Packard looking good.

By 5 pm the car was looking amazing and I couldn't help but think of how much fun it is going to be to see it with the Traveleze.