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Fred, thanks for answering, now that I look closer I see the 3 holes in the bottom.
Thanks again.
Wes

OK, where are the "hundreds" of Packard owners who have had failures of their Bendix Treadle Vacs????

It took about 2-3 years fro the first forum member to take advantage of our free diagnosis/repair offer.

fredkanter Quote:

I'm one, but changing out the BTV is a much bigger deal and expense than changing out the stock V-8 oil pump. Between Jack Vines and I, hundreds of Olds oil pump adapter kits have been sold. I don't have and am not interested in an accounting of BTV failures/replacements. I can tell you that I've had my BTV conversion on my 55 Pat for 14 years and it has never even whimpered. There are others too that have done it, but in a different way (Keith, Eric and Lance to name but 3).

IMO, the stock BTV has multiple potential failure modes and is a fatal accident waiting to happen. But "you pay your money and you take your chances."

http://1956packardpanther.com/Panther/powerbrakes.html

Craig

I'll second Craigs claim above.
A conversion to a more modern unit if for no other reason than to avoid the maintenance required on the BTV unit.

Here is the maintenance schedule for the BTV as i understand it:
Drain and flush entire brake system every 6 months to 1 year.

Arguments against the BTV PECULIAR design has been covered in this forum . Covered over and over and over again many times over several years from 2001 (beginning at the AACA website) and nearly daily at this forum up to about 2010.

I've never read or heard of flushing/changing the brake fluid every 6 months to a year. We have a 55 Carib which is used minimally for the 6 warm months and we change it every 5 years. Have never encountered the gunk that was in the subject unit.

We also have a 56 Carib with silicone fluid, it sat for 20 years and when started the brakes were 100%.

fredkanter Quote:

The problem with the BTV seems exacerbated when Packards are driven relatively often all year. That is my useage pattern as well as Keith's (PackardV8).

As far as failure mode analysis, I threw my last one in the trash after being disgusted with 4 failures in 2-1/2 years. One complete and no-warning failure was in stop & go rush hour traffic in Las Vegas and I only escaped a crash by doing an immediate hard right turn into a parking lot and stopping with the P-brake!

Craig

I see you did no failure analysis, that's too bad as it would help us understand the reason for failure. We have seen units that were improperly rebuilt, I'd bet that that was the problem with your units.

Food for thought: Brake fluid cannot tell what brand master cylinder it is in or if it is a power or manual master cylinder. The gunk that formed in the subject cylinder did not turn to gunk overnight or I speculate in 6 months.

If you keep brake fluid in your converted dual system for 25 years in a damp atmosphere the same thing will happen to the fluid

This was posted in the Chat Room, probably better here.

"customclipper55: Well Fred, James. It is obvious failures due to neglect, sludge , inexperienced novices in the hobby need no explanation nor forensic study. It is no mystery that these have gone undeclared. My interest was from the 5 or ten or more who were stating failures of cently refirbed units with the brake system flushed. There was a whole long previous thread on this and I asked who and how many of these had remote fill resevoirs without a submerge tube and air space in the resevoir. This has also gone mysteriously silent since. Guess suspicions confirmed."

fredkanter Quote:

You'd lose that bet. Maybe the first one, but I believe it was rebuilt before I bought my Pat by Trowbridge Automotive in Portland, OR and they also rebuilt the engine and T-U, which are still working perfectly to this day. They were well known for expertise in all things Packard. The 2nd unit was from a known professional supplier. The 3rd unit was rebuilt by White Post Restorations and the 4th was bought from one of the "usual suspects." All failed at between the 6th and 12th month of somewhat less than daily operation. After every BTV change, I completely drained the brake system and put in new fluid and then bled the brakes, so old brake fluid cannot be the problem.

The one that's been in there for 14 years was a brand new one from Master Power Brakes (both the booster and the MC).

When your brakes completely, instantly with no warning and utterly fail (pedal to the floor), that will put the "fear of God" in you. Like I said, the MPB booster & MC has not so much as wimpered EVER. And with the Disc Brake conversion I did later, my 55 Pat will STOP.

There is not enough $$$ in the world to get me to go back to the BTV. Since even you do not know the root cause of these failures, why "stick yourself in the eye with a sharp stick" when the are reliable alternatives?

Craig

Between 1962 and 1970 my brother and I used our 53-56 BTV equipped Packards almost exclusively, probably 10 of them. I'm guessing we covered 125,000 miles total. Never had a failure. Also the ten's of millions of BTV equipped cars of 1952-1960 which were used as daily transportation back then, as far as we know, did not have failures often as your experience shows.

While using my 52 low mileage Patrician from 1973-present we had to rebuild it once, no failures, Dan's 55 Carib same thing, no failures. So no, I'm not putting a stick in my eye just putting my trust in 2 things, Bendix engineering and our rebuilding abilities. I do not put ABS, fuel injection, side itrusion beams or the hundreds of modern items in my cars, I believe in originality.

As scientists/engineers we look for causes and then look to remedy them. Giving up and throwing thing in the trash is not part of our methodology. I'm sure you were very frustrated

Keep in mind packardinfo has 1000's of members and it took about 3 years for someone to submit a unit for evaluation.
What we found was no surprise.