Ever since we first steamed the Stanley up we have had issues with the pilot running much too rich when you come to a stop after driving any real distance. Our first thoughts were that this was caused because the pilot pressure was set at 30 PSI. But after lowering it to 10 PSI and not seeing any serious improvement we started looking a little closer. After inspection of the pilot assembly itself we noticed the adjustment needle was in very poor shape and realized that it would have to be replaced.
This car runs a Packard Pilot and the parts are available through John Packard. After a discussion with John Packard and Don Bourdon I was informed that I should also replace the pilot vaporizer with a longer unit and add a pilot shield while I have it apart. The addition of these items will help keep the pilot from going out as easily and possibly aid in solving my rich pilot issue.
Everything went together relatively smoothly except we had to modify the the pilot vaporizer because the branch forks wouldn't clear the banjo fitting on the inlet side. This was remedied by shorten the visible portion about 3/4" and re-threading it. Thanks for the help with that Atlas!
Being that the new valves came in we decided to replace the pilot shut off valve at the front of the vehicle and the drivers side blow down valve because we already had things partially apart. The pilot shutoff valve at the front of the car was just an 1/8" inline ball valve that had seen some miles and some fires. We replaced it with a proper Stanley shutoff valve and located it on the far right. The drivers side blow down valve was also incorrect. It was a high pressure water valve with a modified Stanley handle. We mounted the correct valve on the far right in a fashion to match the blow down on the other side.
