Little curious how you had or have things hooked up. Is the 12 battery by itself and feeding only one thing or tied into the rest of the car somehow? The fact the fuse didn't blow or when the kickdown switch was engaged, the engine didn't die by ign coil grounding thru the solenoid coil is very interesting. Also don't understand how the solenoid was even coming in to go into overdrive if the coil voltage was going to the ign kill contacts instead of the coil.

Nothing in the car is polarity sensitive other than possibly the factory radio in some circumstances. Many are running neg ground in their car either on purpose or accidentally because a mechanic installed the battery backward at some time in the past and with no ill effect.

In order to have the red light show there had to be some kind of feedback path that allowed the different voltages to interact driving enough through the indicator light for it to glow. The light works by having one side of filament at battery voltage and other side reaching ground thru generator windings. When generator not putting out voltage, then a path is there to light up. Once generator is outputting voltage anywhere close to battery level, then both sides of filament see the same potential and no light. To have it light only when OD selected indicates either generator wasn't charging with enough output because of a huge draw or somehow that 12v had to be on one side of bulb and 6v on the other.

I would be concerned something else may be at risk or possibly already damaged.

Quote:

Devil is that you poking fun at my signature quote?

You have the original Detroit Lubricator carburetor? You might inquire of Daytona Parts in Florida who routinely rebuilds Detroit Lubricators, Henry Yeska in PA who sometimes has them for sale, and quite a few Detroit Lubricator parts have been in reproduction for some time, I think perhaps by Bruce Blevins if memory serves.

will i checked every thing over and found that i did have the wiring hooked up backwards due to i went to a neg. ground. the wire from the relay needs to be hooked up to the #4 terminal and the wire from the kick down switch need to go to the #6 terminal. it will be the other if i stay with the pos.ground. i took the car out and in over drive i can get up to 70mph and the alt. light did not come on. and every thing semes to be working real good now. i have to say thanks for all your help i real do appreciate it...

thanks again
joe in tn..

Tom,

Those headlights do look sweet.

Have you checked The Carburetor Shophttp://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Carbshop_parts.htm#Floats

They mention having some used floats available back to the teens but will only sell them with the purchase of a kit. Might be worth a call to see if they have a kit you could buy and save for the future and a float for now.

Hello all, where can i get a new/used float for my 1929 packard 640 carb. it is brass, cylindrical shaped with a hole in the center for the needle valve.

thanks, Dave

ps: the old float cannot be patched any more.

Not sure what "the devil" is in this context but if a link to another tempting "Get thee behind me"-- too good to pass up Packard, link is not working--and probably not the temptation either.

this is the devil again . . . you thought I'd gone, didn't you . . . .

There are many many more cheap Packards yet to come and tempt you . . . . Hope you are strong enough

'The real tragedy of human existence is watching a Packard being crushed and ending up in heaven'. I said that . . .

The cables are above one another a little and also have the late model separators but unfortunately with the dual carbs, linkage, and AC there is not a lot of room to work with.