Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

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Please see my response to Let The Ride Decide on this matter. I'll talk more about it in the upcoming TPC article I'm working on. All these issues hopefully will be answered then.

Thanks much!

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Thanks for posting these photos. What is shown here is the dealer-installed accessory safety brake fluid reservoir. Yes, I am very familiar with these units and had several of them NOS in the box when I was robbed in 2002 and they were taken with the rest of my Packard parts and my Packards. Very familiar with these.

However the gizmo I'm looking for was an extension on the filler plug that was supposedly released by S-P forV8 Packards equipped with factory air conditioning.

I have had several 1955-56 Packards with factory air over the years, but not one of them had the gizmo in question (different from the accessory safety brake fluid reservoir). I have had people tell me they had this thingie on their Packards, but nobody ever has shown me a photo of one in all these years. So? I'm on the hunt. If anybody has this gizmo or a photo of it, I would love to see it! Thanks again.

I have disassembled a couple of 55s with factory AC and those did not have anything except the regular filler plug on the brake reservoir either. If pictures are forthcoming sure would be interesting to see if it was anything like the short version tube that is shown in a photo of another brand car someone posted a couple of weeks ago.

IMO, an extension tube would be kind of a kludge and leave a bit to be desired. Kind of makes me wonder if it was really in production and why they would go to the expense to design and make something like that instead of just including the already available and proven remote fill jar on AC cars. I would think a tube like fill extension was one of those things that was more a design or wishful thinking idea and never got much past paper -- sort of like the high performance package that never saw the light of day other than maybe on a few experimental cars -- or was proven impractical.

The remote jar would work nicely and would fit and clear the blower if it were positioned right next to the wiper coordinator but really don't see how any kind of tube attachment to the filler cap could be brought within reach unless it was long and came up past the blower like the trans dipstick and again, IMO a long extension would lead to other issues. The large blower housing filling the space above the BTV and main air vent tube positioned next to the rocker covers just leaves no room for an arm and hand to reach down or around very far extension or not.

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It might be constructive to know whether the extended filler neck and cap was designed by Bendix to accompany the TreadleVac where requested, or something Packard developed independent of Bendix.

Or if this is already known, which is it?

I have seen a stubby extended filler cap on TreadleVacs on non-Packards, so I suspect it was a Bendix development and not a Packard design.

Randy, the fluid in the remote fill jar looks very dark. This is normally a sign the fluid needs to be changed. Or, maybe this is an old photo and the service is no longer needed.

You can see the gold paint, barely.

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Interesting. They obviously wanted to call attention to the name so makes me wonder even more why there appears to have been no mention or promotion in any of the literature. As near as I can remember it was always plain old air conditioning yet Ultramatic and Easamatic and a couple of other names Packard had adopted were frequently mentioned.

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