Mr.Pushbutton
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Posts posted by Mr.Pushbutton
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I have had people ask "is that a Lincoln?" or that looks like a
Lincoln or Mercury. John Reinhart, who led Packard styling, supervised the 1951 body re-style, went over to Ford. That could perhaps explain some of the simularities. Look at the '55 Packard senior cars against the Dearborn products. Not quite the Packard look, still the older L-M body shell.
Then look at the '56 L-M products--the front fenders, headlight "eyebrows" all of a sudden, they Look like Packards!
As far as modern cars, amen to 53 Packard! I love cars from the teens through the 60's, but the cars of today have it all over the cars of the past. Think about your Taurus, LeSabre, Impala, that you drive every day. How many oil cups do you have to lube monthly? How many of us own 3-4 year old cars with over 100,000 miles and still going? How many repairs have you had in those miles? Do we have selective memory, or am I the only one who remembers 3 year old cars rusting out?
Oh, sure there are lemon horror stories out there, but by and large the modern everyday car is durable, gets great gas mileage, is a lot better on the air we breathe (not as much a problem back when Packards ruled the roads--but we've multiplied the number of cars on the road almost ten-fold since then) My 1990 Olds Trofeo went 205,000 wonderful miles before I sold it. In the ten years I owned it I replaced an oxygen sensor and two water pumps. That's it. Oh yes, a few brake jobs. By the time most 50's cars hit 80-100,000 miles the front end is completely shot, the engine (depending on maintenance) is getting tired, the auto trans is becoming worn (except for the Hydramatic, they were all still learning). the better grade of cars of today still feel like new at 100,000 miles. They will not last decades the way our Packards and their contemporaries have. That's not a design requirement. The pre-60's American car is amazingly durable(in a multi decade sense), and renewable. That's why we love them, preserve them, and drive them. Yea, newer cars kind of look alike. The late Gordon Buehreg warned of this at a dinner I once attended. He was the guest speaker. He opined that the wind tunnel had become the judge of style, and the teardrop (AKA "jellybean") was the perfect aerodynamic shape. He winked one of his classic GB smiles and said "and we knew that in 1936!). Here in the four season midwest, I'll take my modern wheels for the day to day grind driving, and save my old cars for pleasure driving (a difficult thing to do with today's drivers!) John
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Didn't the factory call this the "steep driveway kit"? John
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Amen to the new wiring harness! I have seen a multitude of problems go away for good with the new harness. As I said in an earlier post, the worst hack work of all is committed to the wiring on old cars. This will give you an oppertunity to straighten it out. One word of advice: don't buy the harness by make/model designation from a catalog. Remove your old harness from the car and send it to the vendor for duplication. I have experience with a frame-up we did where the boss ordered a harness "from the catalogue" and when it came time to wire up the car, some rather crucial wires were "missing" from our new harness. Point being: Packard (and other manufacturers) made changes during a model year, and to be certain your new harness is exactly as original, send the original in with your order. They can even switch over the connectors that must be re-used due to their rarity. John
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I just found this site yesterday, before I read this post. I found a picture there of the exterior of the dealership my '56 400 (PMCC company car--factory showroom, Jefferson ave., Detroit) was delivered from. Many other cool pics related to Packard, including what must have been a big explosion and fire at East Grand Boulevard.
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Sure, just hook up some switches and bypass the Tl circutry, It never worked anyway. And pull that weird Packard V-8 motor and put in a small block Chevy,Packard didn't know much about motors. It might be difficult to adapt to your Ultra-torqueflite II, but Jim Bob and Cooter will get er' done.
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FYI-the Torsion level timer/relay box for 56 is wired such that when activated, after the preset delay it sends a "ground" to the desired solenoid up on the fender well. The OE solenoids are the type where one end of the pull-in coils is wired internally to the "incoming" stud, to which is bolted the positive power buss on the incoming power side. The small #8 insulated stud on the front of the solenoid is seeking ground to complete the circuit, pull in the plunger, which applies power to turn the TL compensation motor in that desired direction. This should save someone out there a little time (time I spent getting educated!) John
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Hey 55Packardguy, I don't want to burst your bubble, but the two Duesenberg SSJ roadsters (the Gary Cooper and Clark Gable) were "meeting" together in 1987 at the Hickory corners "Duesenberg experience", a once in a lifetime show. 50, count em', 50 Duesenbergs. The good, the bad and the ugly. The Auburn museum is someplace any died in the wool car enthusast should see!, Oh, and I guess that sherrif Andy's $425,000 Packard is still a used car! The devil is in the details. Packards are quite solid electrically (very un-British), and as long as no one has "improved" things, should be simple to straighten out. J
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I must have a picture of one somewhere. I have boxes of car photographs that I never look at. So I stopped taking a camera to car shows. I may very well have a pic of the Bayliff. I took pictures of everything back then. The first Auburn
I attended, 1980, I photographed the parade, and didn't know about the fiberglass kit cars. I took photos of every one of those too!
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there was a Pontiac Grand Prix-based "Packard" produced in the early 80's by the Bayliff coach company, out of Ohio. The gentleman behind these cars was a funeral director, and this was sort of a "fun" side line for him. I used to see a few examples of his work every year at the ACD reunion-Kruise auction in Auburn. Decent workmanship on those cars, just not very far from the stock-GM base vehicle.
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Hoo-boy, that's one scary kluge job. At first blush, on my not-so-great CRT monitor it reminded me of a set of drawings the late Dick Teague brought to a Motor City Packards meeting (about 20 years ago). they were renderings Dick had done at management's request for a 1956 400 convertible. Yes, a 400 convertible. No hood scoops, no upsweep side chrome, the usual stainless ribbed panels and standard senior trim. Very striking, very Packard conservative, yet sporty. The car in the drawings was "painted" the factory dark blue metallic, a solid color scheme. I wonder what became of all of Dick's artwork? Did a college (art center, Pasadena?) get all his stuff when he died?
I know of a couple of Caribbeans still around that rusted way beyond salvage, and I know of a caribbean frame that's "available". If one could get a clean western state 400 body it would still be a hell of a lot of work to make a compatible convertible body, with all the modifications. If I had lotto money, I would love to create that "never built" '56 Packard. Oh well. John
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Could it be that a number of us V-8 boys are currently working on our cars, and that's why there is so much V-8 chat? One thing I have noticed locally is that the people with the "glory years" Packards (classics) belong to the CCCA-tontine, and not PAC so as not to rub elbows with all those "bathtubs and 50's cars"(there is a faction there that wishes that Packard had never made junior cars, and had gone under in '37-'38 along with P-A and ACD) They also tend to write checks (reluctantly) rather than turn wrenches. I would love to read of the experiences of a master Packard 12 rebuilder, or someone skilled at remaking wooden body sub-structures. But, it's a free-world forum, and right now there's a lot of V-8 going on. Viva la difference! John
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WCraigH was absolutely correct to explain the difference between the Packard TL system so as to not have it confused for the short "front only" torsion bars used by Chryslers of the 50's and 60's. Story time: We had Bill Allison, the inventor of Packard's TL suspension system come and be guest speaker for our PAC chapter (Motor city Packards) about 20 years ago. He gave a great presentation, half engineering talk and half history. He brought with him all of the original drawings for the Packard system (since reprinted as a chapter project) where the Packard TL system was simply identified as the "A" (first iteration) suspension. The Chrysler set up came on the market some time after Packard's. Drawings, photos and finally a car were obtained by Packard for competitive study. Erwin Weiss looked at the Chrysler system, then shot a grin to Allison and other PMCC engineers and stated "and this is the half-A suspension". John
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My 63 Chevy II has an alternator, it's in the shop manual and parts book. I think that 62 was the first year for chevy. The car looks like you could get a front end off of a biscayne station wagon and with some work have a nice car, providing the frame didn't get too bent in the collision.
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Hi guys, I have a 1963 Chevy II 100 2dr. sedan. The car was sold without a radio (it had the block off plate), and I located and installed a used delco
factory radio, correct for that year. I have a NOS antenna GM part # 985456, and in the time between when I bought the antenna and now I have lost the hole drilling template that was inside the box. It's a piece of heavy card stock paper, almost triangular, with location arrows and the hole centerlines. Does anyone out there have this template? could I get a scan or a photo copy? if so please email me at: jab@twmi.rr.com Thanking you in advance, John
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In response to V-8 Packard re: the push button selector switch assembly contact leafs breaking--I went through my stock of these and found one where breakage has occured as you describe. The contact leaf has a sharp 90 degree bend at the bottom, where it mounts to the mating riveted solder lug (all units made are manufactured this way). It is easy to see how this could be brittle. The one unit I have that is broken in this way looks like it went through the war. One unit had, what I believe to be a good solution to the fragility of the contact leafs. Someone very carefully soldered a 45 degree angled "blob" of solder between the upright portion of the contact and the base/wire terminal lug. This places the bending stress all along the soldered portion, relieving the stress from the right angle bend. If you are good at soldering, this would be easy to accomplish. Abrade the surface to be soldered with a fine wire brush(I would use the small rotary wire brush attachment on my Dremel tool), use flux, a good size iron (50W or so--get in fast, get 'er done fast and back out), and some good rosin core solder. the rule here is that a little goes a long way--don't over do it.
If that doesn't work for you, there would be ample room inside the steering column switch assembly housing for a board (piece of phenolic material) to be mounted on stand-offs, behind the OE switch unit that simply has 6 shallow momentary contact push buttons (available from an industrial or surplus supply house) that would be mounted at the same centers as the existing buttons so as to be "pushed" by the black plastic plunger at the rear of the button (the one with the shorting clip). This switch would need to be able to handle the current draw of the shift relay coils, and repeated operation. I could develop such a thing, if the need grows. John
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Packard V-8, I have not experienced this widespread failure. Those fingers are fairly thick, and stout. I could see where the solder "blob" at the base could affect it's durability. I would buy a NOS unit, and start fresh. Joel Ray has them new-in-the-box, and if your three are that defective, you could start fresh with one of these. I have done a number of these units, on and off of cars, and have "talked down" a number of perplexed owners and have yet to encounter this problem. John <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />
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I am an original-as-built guy, but I think that our Packard orthodoxy will be in for quite a shock in the next decade. The street rod boys are looking for new mountains to climb. They have done about anything and everything that can be done with a 30's Ford body and are constantly looking for new summits to ascend. A factor that will push this along is the inevitable supply/demand point that is reached when the men who collect Packards (especially 30's models--who are mostly retirement aged) begin to pass away, and there is no new blood (or interested heirs) to take their place. In the local CCCA chapter there are two famlies where the sons have the same interests that the father has, and will continue on. The rest (it's a big group) have grown children who don't like the cars, and will liquidate them post haste, post mortem.
I once stood in a chow line at one of their events and remarked to my co-worker that we would live to see some of the classics street rodded (starting with the 8 cyl factory bodied cars) and got evil looks, and a statement of denial from a blue haired lady that "that's impossible, the classics are the most VALUABLE cars". I responded that while that is true now, there is no large group of younger people who will desire, and maintain the stronger demand than supply status. I was 43 and the "kid" in that line. Lots of seniors, a few middle aged.
The street rod boys do some great work, even if you don't agree with it. Most all antique car owners could learn much about body work and paint from them. Only the huge money classics get anywhere near that quality of work.
I'm 45, love original Packards and would love to own a 32-33-34 car, even a super 8 closed car. I will do my best to restore my '56 to original condition, but I think change is coming. John
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I'm west of those, I'm in Farmington Hills.
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Here's a Paul Har---VEE type answer to the Edsel question. My Uncle worked for Lincoln-Mercury (1946-1978) and does indeed remember that when Packard folded there was an "open door" policy of instant emploment for any one from Packard, such was the respect over in Dearborn. He told me once that he used to lunch with guys working on the Edsel program (late '56-'57) and that another non-Edsel, ex-Packard guy joined them for lunch. He drove a Carribean, and they were fascinated by the pushbutton shift, and were really talking up it's inclusion into the "new car". They took his Caribbean to an engineering garage and put it on a hoist and studied how Packard accomplished remote shifting. Someone made the comment "we can't make it as expensive as this, we'll have to make it cheaper". They might have remembered it from the Futura show cars--but Detroit car guys have a pretty short memory for such things, and really like to think they invented everything. Ergo it's inclusion into the Edsel. I would love to hear what an Edsel scholar has to say about this.
It is my understanding that Autolite destroyed the tooling from the Packard units shortly after Packard, as we knew it left Detroit and stopped buying same. This would explain the completely different appearance of the Edsel unit. Ford would have undoubtedly used the Packard tooling and design, to realize the savings in tooling. They would have needed to make a different contact bridge, spaced to the detents of the Ford tranny.
Yes, there is a ridge at the rear edge of the contact segment, left over from stamping and part of my routine is to first file it smooth,put a slight champfer to the newly flattened edges, then sand with fine emery cloth, then blow clean with compressed air (spray can brake wash works good, too). I have seen contact fingers that are uniformly "eaten" where they ride on the contact segment. None have gone so far as to weaken the fingers, but someone out there may have a high mileage driver that has.
I think that Packard rushed push botton control into production on the '56 model cars in an effort to gain the distinction it offered from a marketing perspective. The V-8 cars are riding on esentially a 1951 chassis (somewhat modified?) and this explains the inaccessibility of the complete pushbutton actuator, and why complete R&R is such a time consuming job. I have worked on two cars where some corner grease monkey blue-knifed the X-brace from around the actuator, allowing easy R&R. This did not have a noticable effect on the frame's strength laterally, but would be a serious liability in a head-on crash (scary thought in any older vehicle). Methinks that if they had weathered '56, and gotten money for the '57 Predictor-based line, with a new, lower chassis that there would have been an allowance for the push button actuator, and who knows, perhaps a redesign of the shift actuator.
As to the pressure switch, I honestly have not had much trouble from mine, or any customer's. One time I encountered a bad one, replaced it with an NOS unit and the system worked fine. If there is a lot of failure going on (that I don't know about) it could be that the diaphragm inside the switch is failing from age, in which case we are going to have to find a NAPA type substitution from another car line and vintage. The pressure switch is a good idea--sure you can shunt it out, but it's good thinking from a safety standpoint, and hey, it protects the T-U from any needless torture.
I would like to see what you have drawn up re: moving the motor forward. Years ago (after my own stuck-in-reverse crisis) I envisioned a motor sealing endcap/mounting bracket, mounting the existing motor forward where there is ample room, out of which a flex shaft runs to a bearing cap that would screw onto the location where the motor currently sits, with the mating slotted collar like the motor armature has. To this end I was hoping to find a surplus worm and gear assembly taht would allow me to run the motor flex shaft through the gear, and have some kind of "emergency bail out" shifter, perhaps a crank that could be inserted through a covered (soft plugged) hole in the floor board. I fixed my own car, and (knock on wood!) have not had any problems since, and that was the end of that idea. And now you know the rest of the story. John
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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mr PB wrote:
"The Achillies heel of the system is the contact fingers, located on the motor actuator down on the trans. I manufacture new contact fingers,..."
Do u make the contact fingers for the back of the push button unit up on the steering column??? </div></div>
No, I haven't needed to go there yet. there seem to be enough nos button assemblies out there that I would recommend (at this point in time) outright replacement of the whole button assembly. Someday the supply might dry up, and we'll cross that bridge when we get there. The automatic park relays are not plentiful, but even the factory eliminated those on late production cars. The shifting motor, part of the Autolite-produced shifting actuator is hard to find new. This isn't a big problem right now, as they seem to be a very good motor that holds up well. I have wondered for a while now if that motor is used on some FoMoCo product made in '55-'56. Seat motor?, Antenna?. I can get the brushes for that motor, and in one instance had to make a new fiber-board insulating brush holder for one client who pulled the motor off the actuator (which will pull the commutator out of the brushes) In trying to get it back together, he broke the brush-board, cracked it in half. I replicated it out of the identical material, and with the other procedures had him back strong, for long. John
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Guys, My '56 400 is monochromatic in color--norwegian forest green. I have discussed this with Stuart Blond, the V-8 roster keeper and he finds that the late production numbered cars are more single color than the early cars. My serial number is 4134 near the very end of production. John
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Packard collector and Corvette supply maven Neal Porter is now making the 51-56 brake lines in pre-bent stainless. Can be reached at 248-693-1907
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Hi guys, I'm new here. I have owned a '56 400 for 23 years, and have since worked on many comperable cars of that vintage. IMHO, the later 55's and almost all '56 engines were strong, reliable engines. I have friends who have experienced lifter noise, and they found the trouble to be excessive wear on the oil pump input shaft, which allowed some air to be pumped into the oil. A rebuilt pump fixed that problem. I'm sure much has been said in the past on this forum concerning Packard's relative strengths and weaknesses in '55-'56, and how good the V-8 engine is in spite of any percieved deficiencies thay had relative to their (deeper pocketed) competition. A number of us have models that have given great service, many trouble free miles. One thing that haunts these models is the fact that, like it or not, we live in a "big three" world here in the USA (mentally), and the '55-'56 models with a twin ultramatic, pushbutton drive and (especially) torsion level suspension do not look (or ride!) like anything the big three produced. Unfortunately, rather than appreciating the differences the "big three only" type label it as weird, "not invented here-must be wrong" etc. As to torsion level, it is a superb suspension system that finds all surviving examples still standing tall, up in the air (can't say that for the Cadillac "air suspension" cars) and still riding fine. It has the tightest, least "nautical" feel (body roll) of any 50's car I have ever driven (that's a lot). Once again, there is some prejudice--special tools are required to safely service the loaded suspension bars, and not just any corner grease monkey can dive right in and diagnose and fix one. The electrical gagets on these cars are complicated for that era, and in my years of experience, the worse monkey work of all is committed on vintage car electrical systems. Some was done by the corner gas station back when, some has been done recently. There is nothing that comlicated about the torsion level electrics, you just need a mechanic/technician with a strong understanding of electronics.
Which brings me to: pushbutton control of the ultramatic trans--you may notice that my screen name is "Mr. Pushbutton". I have been fixing '56 Packard pushbutton units for over 16 years. This system is reliable, providing everything is in proper order. The Achillies heel of the system is the contact fingers, located on the motor actuator down on the trans. I manufacture new contact fingers,and test rebuilt units on a special test board I have made for these units. I'm proud to say that I have never had a "comeback" due to electrical or mechanical problems (I had a local job on a Caribbean where I fixed the system, we tested the car, and could not get certain gear positions to "locate". I figured out that the shifter was doing everything it was designed to do, and that the control valve shaft was excessively wallowed out, causing gross error inside the control valve). Fear not the V-8 Packard. There are still plenty of them out on the road, a miracle considering their low production numbers. There is a caring community of fellow owners out there giving support (aided greatly by the internet). You will stand out at your local car show. One last word of advice re: my comments about the "big three" mentality as it relates to your potential purchase--be wary of the local engine shop/auto electric/tras shop the has rebuilt/fixed "thousands of Chevys" or other big three car. They most often will compare the Packard to what they already know, and try to make it closer to what they already understand. This may or may not work, and will affect the originality of your car. Appreciate Packards for what they are (solid, reliable, class cars) and approach their repair, care and upkeep that way.
"the man who owns one", John
Proper Bottom Paint?
in Packard
Posted
Billy Bob and Cooter would go right for a Rattle can of gloss black paint, or maybe brushed on rustoleum, or if the tank was badly rusted and loosing fuel they would put an Evenrude tank from a Bass boat in the trunk and punch a hole in the floor to hook up the line. John