Personally, I wouldn't risk it.

I will only be doing short trips and local car shows over the summer and attack the pump problem in the fall.
Thanks for all the advice.

Thanks guys! I kinda think it would be a fun project to do the trunk up as it originally was, which sounds like it's pretty close already.

The trunk lid is in very good shape and I suspect looks just like it did when it left the factory.

So essentially everything that is black, and under that mat would have been flocked. Correct? With the exception of the trunk hinges and mechanisms and I would guess not the spare tire well.

The sound deadening material talked about for 54 in Howard's post seems to only be on the inside of the fenders, but not on the trunk floor or wheel tubs, just the seam sealer.

The mat is die-cut and I'm assuming factory, but maybe that was a dealer option that was added when they relized the flock wasn't very durable? Maybe it's not from 53, but from 54?



On the topic of trunks, my lid has a bit of over hang, about 1/4" and only in the center, which I'm pretty sure is not correct. Maybe the part below has been push in a bit at some point. There is a bit of a dent where it looks like there was a minor impact below the trunk lid, not a rear-end type of hit as there is no other indication of body damage in the trunk pan or the lid. Thoughts?

Pulled cover of regulator and none of the contacts are moving when running…also it does appear the field contact are burned…I guess next step is another regulator tks

I did ground the field terminal and voltage drops ….I’m grounding at regulator field

Ok I followed the moss video who said to polarize generator thru the regulator using batt and fld…so idk..I’ll keep trying

I m not sure what you have going on anymore. I think in order to be sure what is happening you will need to start testing again but with a known good regulator. There is a chance yours might have been damaged.

As you can see from this diagram of a typical generator charging circuit, by using the FIELD terminal when you polarized that put full battery voltage and current across some resistors in the regulator and the current and voltage regulator contacts which internally connect to ground. With one side of the resistors grounded the large current flow thru them could have changed their resistance or burned them open or the regulating contacts shown above the resistors that control whether they are in the circuit could have been damaged. There might be no damage at all but still it is unknown if the regulator is functional. You could still ground the field terminal to see if the generator will put out maximum voltage but that is about as far as you could go.

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Photo from the 54 Fact book but Kev has described the finish well. On a very few of their top end postwar Custom models they offered an optional carpet but usually Packard did not seem to pay much attention to trunks. That changed slightly in 55 when most models got a bit of actual decoration to the sides instead of flocking but even then they only used cardboard with a decorative pattern and the same thin mat for the floor which was in the same pattern as the sides.

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Okay yes I did it wrong following another video….I depolarized went to start it and battery dead again..it was on charger last night and brand new…I also realized I did test wrong….so now I attached jumper to the field terminal of regulator …when I was accelerating it did go up to 7 volts…however when I grounded jumper cable.it sparks and drops to 5.5 volts..then returns to a high 6 or 7 when removing jumper…I read that as the battery being charged as voltage is increasing when accelerating…..?

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thank you for this tip. I tried it and verified the generator is not working. Maybe it was a connection issue. So I removed it and I will disassemble it and clean all connections and see if I can get it to charge again.

While waiting for the rain to past this weekend I looked into the top issue again. The power top motor had red fluid in it so I am going to assume that it was changed over to trans fluid. it was a little low so I added more into it. I didnt see any leaks when I inspected the hoses or the rods so I am going to assume that over time when the top was operated the air was bled out and never refilled by my dad because I do not remember him ever adding more fluid or talking about doing so. The rods were shinny and didnt feel sticky, but I wiped them down with brake cleaner and applied a fresh coat of trans oil. I did use WD40 at the pivot points on the top. Given the issue I was having with the car not charging I wasnt going to push my luck with the electrical system so testing the top out will have to wait for the next time I am home with good weather.