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Does anyone have an original working 40 unit with the heating core also inside the trunk? Since the dual unit only lasted the one year I am wondering how effective or comfortable it actually was able to heat the interior. It seems odd it would have been discontinued so quickly if it worked well. Perhaps it was discontinued because with the dampers the operator had to change to make it heat or cool it was more awkward and not Packard like to operate or maybe the hot air being delivered from above at roof level rather than from the floor was the downside.

Were regular front or underseat heaters also available with the weather conditioner unit?

I can't answer your question from experience and had often wondered the same thing but I imagine that the heater elements put a huge strain on the electrical system. Any coils large enough to warm up the car's interior would have had to draw a lot of amps!

Regular front and underseat heaters were offered with air conditioning.

I can't answer your question from experience and had often wondered the same thing but I imagine that the heater elements put a huge strain on the electrical system. Any coils large enough to warm up the car's interior would have had to draw a lot of amps!

It was hot water operated -- from what I can find out it had a core just like a regulator heater located to the side of the evaporator. There was a damper for each section operated by some kind of mechanism located at each end of the box. One damper had to be closed and one opened to direct the air from the floor inlet thru either the heater core or the evaporator and both air flows exited out the top. Doesn't say if both could be open at once or if there could be any mixing of the hot and cold air flows.

At least one of the articles referred to it as having heating "elements" so that told me that it was electric but hot water would make more sense.

Sometimes descriptions and what people call items are confusing. Not having seen one it is only a guess but I doubt it is electric because of the reason you gave of huge amps needed for a big enough wattage element to heat the entire car. This drawing from the 40 AC parts manual indicates two water hoses. I think they are showing the standard location of a shut off valve on the top of the head for one hose connection and the other says to pump suction which would be the way the ordinary heaters were plumbed.

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United States Patent -> 2180760
The drawing below contains a compressor clutch control.


source: freepatentsonline.com
Click to enlarge!

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Interesting. The heater core is in the blower outlet on the patent and there is a clutch. With the patent details significantly different from what was introduced wonder if this is early an Packard generic drawing or something that was first proposed and found to not be practical to implement. Suppose it could even be some else's design that maybe was bought or was a collaboration from a B&B engineer. Is that one of Packards usual patent attorneys? The clutch looks like it could be a source of trouble or maybe even a Rube Goldberg affair.

Howard (HH56), -> there are some few information about Edward L. Mayo and his patent.

Thanks for the Mayo info. Being a B&B guy wonder how much of the final unit was his system that was kept compared to the Packard system with Packard input or improvements. The article says the Mayo unit took a lot of trunk space and was not very successful so eventually dropped. Wonder if that was his original system or were they speaking of the Packard and, I believe, later Cadillac with virtually the same unit.