HH56

John Ulrich has some repro mud guards. Is one of them the piece you are looking for? http://julrichpackard.com/hood_parts.htm

The overflowing gas, when the car shuts off, is normal on a '38 Super 8, although it baffles me why it was designed that way. There are drain lines out of the bottom of each leg of the intake manifold, going to a common drain that's equipped with a ball check, and after running when the car is shut off, some gas will drain out of the intake. Here is a postwar article explaining why the drain was needed when it was reintroduced on some engines. Not that familiar with the manifolds on the earlier engines but perhaps the geometry is similar enough to the later manifolds the drains were installed for the same reason. If manifold was long or essentially flat perhaps it needed different points to take care of that accumulation.

The total travel at the end of lever on short bar is approx 3". IIRC, when the lever is closest to the solid outside frame edge there is approx 3/8 to 1/2" clearance between the screw at end of transverse bar and solid wall of frame. That is the position where it will provide the max lift to the rear which is close to where yours was in that photo you have in post 19. Transverse bar end moves in approx three inches toward center from there. As you can see in the photo of mine in post 13 it will go at least as far as mine is now and probably an additional 1/2 inch or so. As I mentioned, my car weight is considerable so my bars are trying to lift and are almost at max. Do you have any photos of the compensator showing where the bars are now and of the limit switch and bracket assy to see if it is bent. I am questioning whether the limit switches stopped the motion when you tried to move the lever toward center or if something else did. If the solenoid bracket containing the limit switch did not get bent or damaged and transverse bars are on the proper side of compensator as viewed from the top in that birds eye photo in post 2, then I am at a loss as to what to advise next. I hate to see you put the car aside but at this point unless you live close to someone who could take a look or give you a hand more tinkering without seeing or knowing exactly what is happening might cause damage.

When you run the bars in if the car does not settle in the rear then I would wonder about the shocks as the only other thing I can think of that could cause the problem. Believe you mentioned they are new so the question is are they gas shocks or helper shocks of some kind. Just being stiff should not cause the problem because you could push the rear down, stiff as it might be, and it should say. Gas shocks on the other hand, if they are the kind I've seen that are wired so you can install them but as soon as the wire is cut the rods extend would tend to want to lift the rear.

It is high in rear--looks like 4-5 inches or so. The bottom of fender skirt should be in the middle to just at the top of center hexagon in hubcap. It appears the rear is being commanded to be high because the levers on the short bars are in toward the frame sides. Can you disconnect the rod from the lever on control switch and manually run the lever on the short bar toward the center of car 2-3 inches? If you can, what happens in the rear and even if it is still a bit high, does it push down more easily than it did before. Here is one of your photos with a line drawn approx where I believe the passenger side lever should be. It may even need to go a tad more toward the center of car. If you get it to that point where are the ends of the transverse bars on the compensator -- or about how much farther before the limit switch is activated? If you can move the lever and rear comes down then the next thing would be to readjust the rod to the control switch lever so the car knows it is level at that point. If there is not enough adjustment at the turnbuckle the clamp around the main bar will have to loosen and the end of that rod attachment bracket will have to rotate on the bar slightly and then retightened.

Definitely do not use any kind of wrench on the bar. A gouge or deep scratch will create a localized stress point and the bar could break at that point under a sudden load. It really sounds as if the front load links are not long enough. If they are at max length then the bar has sagged considerably or there is excess weight. It is doubtful there is anything frozen since you can move it some. I have attached the tech bulletin showing the different lengths available and borrowed one of Craigs photos to show what you are looking for. Early cars had no markings on the links and went by measurement only. Later cars had 1 to 4 grooves on the link corresponding to the different lengths available. If you are maxed out on stock length, the link body is ordinary steel. Several have knocked the hardened seats out of the old bar and cut and drilled a length of steel rod to make a longer link. The thing to watch there is the link isn't made too long and tips the load arm sufficiently to upset the front end geometry. Unfortunately the 56 type repro adjustable links are not available for 55 as the seats are different in the 55 configuration. Where is the A arm positioned in relation to the rebound bumpers? If you can't push down more than a small amount It sounds as if the arm is almost touching a rebound bumper. I'd be curious to see a side photo of the car just to see what you are fighting. EDIT Rather than post Craigs photo, here is a link to Craigs site so you can also see the adjustable link he made. The link you are looking for is shown in the top photo on the page. http://1956packardpanther.com/Panther/adjLinks.html 55T-1.pdf

It is possible the switch was modified. Its been a few years but IIRC a poster at one of the other forums mentioned buying a kit from Max. He didn't like that it was all or nothing so took the switch apart and said the inside looked a lot like the antenna switch. He was going to see if he could make it work the same way by adding springs and bending or removing the tab that kept it in position. Don't know if he did but said it didn't look too difficult. I know the poster referred to in the PAC thread that started this discussion had taken delivery of a 55 that had been shipped overseas. When he went to claim the car the tail was in the air. We worked thru possible reasons and he found some damage underneath with the limit switch bracket bent and some shorted wiring. He corrected that but car still did not level. Was tracing wiring and he found the extra switch that appeared to be in the circuit. After it was described it became obvious someone had installed the override on a 55 -- something I hadn't considered. Anyway, that turned out to be the real problem because the knob had been bumped so the switch was in the raise position. The car was doing as it was being told to do.

There may be something published during the Studebaker period but this is the only Packard published info on the override that I remember. Max used to have some of these kits but don't know if he still does.

Yes. Someone has installed a power antenna switch. If you look at the switch I think you will find 3 terminals with the center grounded and the end terminals connected to up and down terminals on the level switch -- at least I certainly hope they are connected there or at least on that side of the limit switches. There have been a few non factory switches and wiring that totally bypass the limit switches with resulting damage. In that spring type switch or even a common momentary spring loaded toggle switch which some have installed there is no provision to disconnect the power to the control switch. You do use the on/off switch and leave it off while doing manual operation and the car will do exactly as you describe. The issue with that type operation happens the one time you forget to turn the the system off. As soon as the car moves out of level manually, 7 seconds later the automatic will kick in and try to drive the opposite direction back to level. Most of the time the manual operation is over and nothing happens except it tries to level again so you quickly turn the switch off. If the travel is a long haul and manual is still engaged when auto kicks in that results in both solenoids being energized and motor getting power to go up and down simultaneously. Hopefully the fuse blows before the locked motor is damaged. The factory switch is not spring loaded and has 3 rows of two terminals each but only 4 places for a wire. The center two terminals are in the light green wire in the feed circuit. Those terminals are placed in series with the on/off switch to interrupt power to the control switch and disable automatic when manual operation is used. The other two terminals on one side of switch goes to the control switch up and down. If you look carefully their opposite terminals have a solid connection to the case to provide the grounds. As to which is better, it is a tossup. With the spring switch you can control exactly where you want to stop and the system is already off. With the factory switch you can control too but then you still have to turn the system off so it stays where you want it.

Since they are new and shocks have been an issue for others, was thinking one way to eliminate shocks as the issue is temporarily disconnect the lower ends. Just let them hang while you try pushing and manually moving things and see what happens. If rear pushes down within reason then try to make it level manually and if you can, hook the linkage back up to the switch and make that the level point. If they are gas filled shocks that need to be wired down or the rear end dropped before you can connect them to the brackets then the car was not designed for those. You may need to go to regular shocks where the ends stay in whatever position you place them or else place some kind of load in the trunk that will give the shocks something to push back against.

When you manually place the car max down the levers on end of short bars will move into the frame channel. When the compensator is at max travel and hitting the limit switch they should stop with the lever end about 1/2 inch from the outer closed side. At that point on a normally loaded car the rear end should be down low. Does that ever happen? If not is there anything missing in the rear or added in the front that would upset the weight balance significantly? You said you pushed the rear bumper so assume that was mounted --also assume the trunk lid, gas tank and rear seat too? If everything is on the car then I would really wonder about the weight on the front and the length of the load link pins. Depending on how much the transverse bar is bent that will affect things a bit since the length will not be to spec resulting in the short bar levers not going to their full travel in the down direction. The system depends on having very little friction -- actually a controlled amount of friction -- and otherwise being free to balance the car on the bar. The rubber bushings on the front A arms have been one area of problem as has rust or some kind of debris between the arm and sides of frame support preventing the rear load arms from moving freely. The rear Watts linkage has bushings and while it is possible one or more is extremely tight it shouldn't be causing the problem you are seeing. Air or gas helper shocks have been a known common problem with not being able to push the rear down easily so if your shocks are extra stiff or extreme heavy duty that could be part of the issue.

It would be nice if someone were close to you. Not sure where you are but you might mention an area and ask. The forum at www.packardinfo.com is much more active and more geared to postwar cars than this forum so you might ask there too. You can also download the suspension section of 55-6 SM as well as other TL information from that site if you don't already have it. I sounds as if the electrical portion is at least trying to work. One thing to be aware of is the main bars do not move via the compensator enough to really see a change. The center portion where the link to switch is connected rotates just a tiny amount -- in the order of single digit degrees. That small rotation is increased by the length of the lever clamped onto the bar into an amount that is enough to activate the switch.. The main bars take the load and are stressed in opposite directions via the load arms and links. Front end pushes the end of its load arm up from the outside and rear link pushes up from the inside twisting the bar. The center is essentially a place where both forces come together so very little rotation. The car is supported on the bar but is essentially a teeter totter balanced in the middle where a change in weight at one end or the other unbalances the car. Any extra load that increases twist at one end or the other enough to upset that balance causes the heavy end to drop. The compensator corrects this by twisting the short bars which are connected to the same load link at the rear as the main bars. By twisting the short bars it is adding or subtracting force to the rear load arm. That extra force is enough to augment the main bar but can only compensate for a few hundred pounds. This photo is not the best but is the best I can do at the moment. Car is level and you can see the lever on the short bar is toward center by approx 1 1/2 inches off vertical. The car is a 56 Caribbean hardtop which is optioned to the max including AC. Height from bottom of chrome strip on rockers is approx 9" from the ground and being heavily optioned with the extra weight, it is not typical of most cars. Packard says 10" was normal but with the extra weight and standard bars it rides low. The ride height was an issue on the longer wheelbase heavily optioned cars so Packard introduced a limited number of bars with additional twist to carry the extra weight. Unfotunately this car does not have them.

Here are the specs from the 56 SM showing the original tire size for the 5680 chassis 400 and Patrician models was 800 x 15. The original whitewall width seems to be a matter of opinion -- or maybe brand. There are factory photos showing several width variations -- even to one photo taken at a car show featuring a car with a narrow approx 1" width. The majority seems to be in the 3" range though. Maybe someone has found some documentation that can specifically state but if so it doesn't seem to have been widely available. I won't speak to the merits of bias vs radial because that is another thing that gets several opinions but many posters on the various Packard forums have bought 235-75R15 radials as being the most appropriate modern size for the senior cars. A significant number have bought the Diamondback II wide whitewall radials in the 3' width from DiamondBack tires http://www.dbtires.com and have mentioned being very pleased with them. They are a bit pricier than other radials but seem to have a width appropriate for Packard whitewalls. You can download their catalog and judge for yourself. One thing about the larger radials is they do fit the wheelwells a bit tighter than bias tires. Some have had issues in changing them because of the extra width combined with some modern replacement shocks not letting the axle drop as far as the original shocks. That has sometimes caused a bit of grief with clearance and having to deflate slightly when changing. There is also a newish wide white radial which has been available at some stores. Those are advertised as radials closely mimicking the look of the original bias tires and are also a bit pricy. Don't recall seeing any mention of anyone having tried them on Packards.

That figure 40 is the front load link which takes the place of and fits in the same area a coil spring would be on conventional spring suspension. Changing those links is the only way to raise or lower the overall car height -- or to compensate if one side is higher than the other. There were 4 different links at half inch differences from 3 1/8 to 4 5/8 inches long. Most of the heavier cars used the 4 1/8 or 4 5/8 links but a stripped Clipper model may have used the shorter. Changing one link size resulted in a car height difference of approx 3/8" If the car is heavily optioned with lots of extra weight on the engine end or sometimes just due to age, the bars can't handle the weight and front hangs low. Unless the links are already at max that sag is compensated for by changing to a longer link. The nominal level car height measured from rocker panel under doors to ground is about10". If the rear end is significantly high -- say maxed out with load arms ends pointing downward and shocks are fully extended, with your reporting the short lever is more in the mid or neutral position similar to the photo then you have some kind of mechanical problem that is holding the rear up. If the car is not at the extreme limit and the rear is maybe just a few inches out then that could be the adjustment of the rod assy connecting the Left main bar to the control switch. That linkage is roughly under the front door rear edge and is shown in the photo. Make sure there is no damage to the rod and that the clamp on the main bar is hanging downward and hasn't gotten bent to the side. There is no real position to verify other than clamp is straight and pointing down. You can see if the rod or clamp is the problem by disconnecting the rod from the lever on the control switch. The switch lever is spring loaded but there will be a sort of dead spot right in the center where nothing should happen. The lever moves about 1/4" before you feel the spring. The dead spot is right in the middle -- maybe 1/8" play before you energize the switch. With no rod attached and the lever centered at the dead spot the car should not move when you turn the suspension on. If it does move with the rod disconnected and doesn't stop when you change the lever position slightly then something electrical is shorted or a component has failed.

I don't think air shocks will help your situation. If I understand it, air shocks are adjustable to compensate for different weights that would be loading the car and are to help raise it. Since your tail is already high air shocks would just make that worse. If anything it would probably take a couple of hundred pounds of sand in the trunk to lower the rear. How far up in the air is the rear and approximately where are the short lever arms positioned now as compared to this factory photo. Packard said neutral position was approx 1/2 inch off vertical toward center of car but that depends on model and how the car is optioned. In reality neutral can be an inch give or take off vertical in either direction. You mentioned jacking up to watch the bars. The system has to have weight on all points to work so trying to level with anything jacked up won't give a good sense of what is happening. If you need to watch and actually have the leveler work the car needs to have all 4 wheels on ramps or you need to be in a pit watching in order to get a good feeling of operation. Are the load links in front approximately the same size and are there any markings on them. Early 55s were not marked but later ones had one to four grooves around the body to denote length. Most cars use three or four groove links. Any photos of the compensator and bars and the short bar lever that you can post might be helpful.

I just remembered a poster on the PAC forum whose system did not work and the tail was in the air. He had other things going on but something you need to check or be aware of on yours too. Not sure if your problem is an electrical or a mechanical issue but look under the far left dash edge right next to the TL on/off switch and see if you have any other switches. If there is a dash type knob sticking down there is a possibility of the 56 manual over ride switch being installed on your 55. It was a very late 56 option and I doubt many 55s had it installed but the other posters 55 did and it turned out to be a cause of one of his problems. The factory manual override switch is a 3 position push/pull switch that stays in whatever position it is placed in. Center is for normal operation but pushing the knob up will disconnect the automatic level circuit and manually cause the rear to rise until the limit switch stops the action. Same with pulling the knob down. It disconnects automatic and lowers the rear until the limit switch stops in that direction. As long as the switch is in one of the manual positions nothing on the TL works and car stays at max up or down. It is easy to hit the switch with a foot or when reaching under the dash for any reason. The other poster found his switch had been inadvertently pushed up so the car rear was doing as it was told to do. There have been other ways found to manually operate the system and if one of those methods are installed then without tracing out any odd wiring there is no way to tell what the system is being told to do.

Both bars should be straight however that is not the big item at the moment if they are moving. When you moved the motor you said the link arms moved. Are you speaking of the two (passenger side bent) transverse bars as the links that moved and if so did the short levers at the end of the short bars move too? If so, then so far so good. If not, there are serious issues. If the levers at the end of short bars are well into the frame almost touching the side that is most likely the reason for the tail end up. When in normal position, depending on the load in the car the short levers are a few degrees either side of straight down. If they are in a more or less neutral position then look for something mechanical blocking the action of the bars and rear load arms. Some have had rust at various places being an issue with things so frozen even the strength of the bars couldn't move things. Others have had lift kits or gas lift shocks or other items installed which block movement. If the transverse bars and short levers are moving, verify the bars are on the correct side of the compensator assy per the illustration above which is depicted as looking down from the top. Short drivers side bar in front, long passenger side bar in the rear. With bars being bent the usual cause is because at some time the limit switch failed to stop the motor and the compensator kept going. It managed to move the bars to the opposite sides from normal and with the motor still going, when the bars hit the solid compensator body they can't do anything but bend. Hopefully the fuse blows at that time but if not internal damage can occur too. With a strong motor driving a worm gear plus two stages of planetary gear reduction the strength of the compensator is considerable. Verify where the bars are and if not on the correct sides, that will confuse the system. If they are wrong it gets a bit delicate to get things correct. You will have to drive them back doing as you did with the direct connection and under close observation so you don't drive too far and run the bars into the compensator on the opposite side. Since it appears at some time they were driven into the center there is a chance the splines on the output link could be damaged. With the stress of running the bars back that could overload things enough any weakened splines will decide to shear.

Same with the Packard item. Here is a photo from the 55 acc folder. The large grill is intake and slightly heated air is blown out the small slot under the elevated rear edge facing the glass. The way the description reads it sounds like they are still running both units off the same switch.

The rear defroster would be great too. Where was the switch? In 51 and 52 Packard only had a single speed on/off blower switch and the kit had a small pigtail at the end of the defroster wire. The front blower wire was removed from switch, pigtail attached to the switch and front blower reconnected to pigtail so the rear defroster was in parallel. Both motors operated at the same time. There was a small heater associated with the defroster so this worked out well. If an owner wanted separate control, the dealer could add another switch under the dash edge. In 53-4 it gets more involved. Clippers still had the single on/off switch but seniors had a two speed blower switch with a resistor. While the defroster was small with modest additional current requirements, if in parallel it could be enough to affect overall operation -- heating the resistor a bit more and also resulting in both units being slower than usual. If I were installing I would opt for the additional under edge switch but in 54 there is a spot for an underseat heater switch which I think has to be drilled in the chrome center piece. That space could be used if there was no underseat heater. It would be interesting to know if Packard used the same kit with pigtail for all 4 years or models and if there was a provision .for a separate switch on some. In 55-6 the same applies. If the car does not have an underseat heater the dummy switch position for the rear fan on the left of the heater/vent panel could be used for the defroster. Otherwise, if that was used for the extra heater and the owner wanted separate switches it would be something added under the dash edge. Here is an illustration from the 51-4 manual showing the pigtail.

Dave, thanks for posting that photo. I guess my memory is failing faster than I thought and you were not the one posting the one I was thinking of. Am frequently in error these days so it could be an hallucination but thought I remembered a photo of another installation. There was a pattern on the cardboard which made it later and a couple of loose hoses dropping down to go under the cardboard at the bottom instead of thru a hole near the top like your photo shows. Remember thinking to myself the installation looked a bit haphazard because the hoses seemed vulnerable to getting caught or hit by anything thrown on the ledge between the wheel wells.

I personally have never seen the rear wiper on a V8 but it apparently was still available for 55-6. Dave (Owen_Dyneto) posted a photo of one on, IIRC, a 55 at packardinfo not too long ago. The car also had the rear window defroster which was another option not seen that often -- at least out here. If Dave sees this post maybe he could repost that photo again here to give you an idea how things fit.

The silver angled motor is the stock Chevy bolted into position. It fits (but may need a spacer to clear the protruding lip on the firewall) and is fairly heavy and bulky. It sticks out almost 6" from the dash. Good point is it is bolt in and nothing else needs to change. The black horizontal motor is the Newport Engineering conversion kit with the module holding the coordinator and switch assy located under the motor. Motor is much thinner and comes ready to bolt in (also needs spacer) but the electrical switch is just that -- a switch connected to the motor with wires. No provision for the co-ordinator or the Packard cable operation. The Newport switch has to be mounted in the dash which is no big deal by itself. The issue is the standard Packard wiper bezel has a wide space which is not covered by just the knob. In order to have a decent looking finished conversion you have to cover the rough unfinished section of the bezel. That can be done by either cutting off the rear of the lever which controls the wiper arc on the Packard motor and sliding it over the shaft or come up with some kind of chrome finish washer to do the same. Cutting off the Packard part destroys a maybe hard to find piece for someone else and because the Packard switch is no longer complete you can't revert back to stock if you wanted to without finding another. Destroying a good original part is something I always cringe when happens. Here is a photo of the Newport switch in the bezel and using a Packard knob. Arrows point to the unfinished gap all around the base of the knob which is most unsightly. Second photo is the stock Packard assy. Some have resorted to cutting off the end of the assy (arrow) and just sticking front half with lever over the shaft to duplicate the original look and cover the gap.

Bracket doesn't appear quite the same although I can't see all of it. That one might be for the 57 Chevy motor which because of the different way it connects to the wipers won't just bolt up on our cars like the 55-6 motor does. The bracket I used screws into some threaded holes on the Chevy motor case and allows the stock co-ordinator and bracket to fit and work exactly as it does on the Packard motor. The white nylon actuator piece on the 55-6 Chevy motor has a provision for adding a piece which has the same slots and openings as does the Trico motor Packard used. All that needs to happen is to transfer the co-ordinator assy. Those nylon pieces are in repro at some Chevy vendors but haven't found the bracket yet. First photo is a wax cast of the Chevy bracket. I was going to make some lost wax repros but I don;t have facilities for anything except gravity casting and the sections are too thin for that method. I used the original bracket I had on the module I made to duplicate the sliding action of the stock cable and switch for the Newport motor. You can see the bracket and stock co-ordinator in the second photo.

Although it is a bit larger and bulkier than the Newport conversion, the 55-56 Chevrolet electric wiper motor will bolt right in (may need to add a spacer at the mounting screws) and nothing at the dash needs changing since the motor has a cable operated switch and can use the Packard setup . The price of an ebay Chevy motor can be expensive but frequently about the same as a Newport conversion. Here are a couple of photos showing the two electric conversions on the same 56. The Newport has a special switch module and provision I made so the stock cable switch and coordinator could work and the Chevy shows the motor with their standard bolt on adapter (can be hard to find) that allows the co-ordinator to bolt on to the Chevy motor. Getting the vacuum motor rebuilt plus the price of a dual action fuel pump usually comes out less than the electric conversion.

And in addition to the electric conversion mentioned above, if you want to keep your original vacuum wiper you can also get a dual action fuel pump with a vacuum section to replace the old vacuum pump. Several of the late 50's early 60s Ford dual fuel and vacuum pumps will work on the Packard. The plumbing would be rerouted to place that pump in series between the manifold and wiper motor as was done on the majority of Packards pre 1955. The downside to the Newport conversion is if you have a WS washer, the co-ordinator function cannot be used. Another downside is a piece from the old cable operated wiper switch needs to be destroyed or some other method found to cover a rough area left at the bezel to provide a decent finish on the dash after installing the new electric switch. If you have totally lost wipers after the conversion, assuming your wiper motor is not in need of a rebuild, I would wonder if the plumbing was hooked up correctly when the old vacuum pump was removed. The original manifold vacuum is more than adequate to run the motor and as a matter of point is the majority of what was used in normal operation. The aux vacuum pump was only there to provide a small additional assist on the occasions the engine was under load or wide open throttle and manifold vacuum had dropped. The tubing and balance valve port going to the old sump pump would no longer be used and if not properly blocked off could be resulting in a large vacuum leak.