31 Aug Spanner Works: Wenstley and Donnie Duo

A regular feature by technician JP du Plessis outlining the activities of FMM’s workshop personnel who are responsible for repairing, renovating, refurbishing and restoring the museum’s large and varied collection of vehicles. This month, Wentsley and Donnie do some shift work…

Introduced in 1940, the 110 was Packard’s so-called entry-level product, slotting in below the grand 120. Instead of an in-line eight cylinder engine, an in-line six was reintroduced after a 10-year absence from the company’s line-up. In 1941, due to the success of sales in the previous year, Packard added more models to the 110 range including the 110 Deluxe, one of which is in the museum’s collection.

Wenstley Wicomb returned from an ‘exercise drive’ and was unable to deselect the gear he was in. He first checked the linkages from the column shift to the gearbox, but there was no clear indication of a fault, only signs of the usual wear and tear. He approached Donnie Tarentaal to assist and it was decided to remove the gearbox top cover to inspect the selector fork mechanism. Once that was done, it was noted that the dog teeth on second and third gears were a bit the worse for wear, but more on that later.

Donnie first attended to the selector fork mechanism, which appeared stuck towards one position. After getting it moving freely, it was reinstalled and tested on the car. It worked, but only for a while before getting stuck in gear again. Donnie and Wenstley then decided to remove the entire gearbox to inspect further and see why the dog teeth on second and third gears were so rough. Upon disassembling the gear set, it was found that the synchro hub was installed the wrong way round sometime during its previous ownership. This prevented the sliding ring with internal dog teeth from engaging second gear and damaged the gear’s external dog teeth. So, the damaged gears were deburred and all internal parts were cleaned thoroughly and reassembled into the casing. A spare gearbox top cover was also found to replace the original, as one of the pivot arms on the original was bent out of its desired dimensions.

With everything cleaned and correctly reassembled, the gear selection was tested on the bench before the gearbox and drive shaft were reinstalled to the car and the ’box filled with some fresh GL4. Donnie started the car and went through the gears with the car in situ and all gears were found to select smoothly. After lunch, Wenstley test drove the car with Donnie in the passenger seat. All went well and the Packard 110 Deluxe cruised smoothly back to shelter from the Cape winter weather.