Re: Randy Berger's 1956 Caribbean

Posted by Packard53 On 2008/2/29 21:32:17

Randy: Reading your post about rebuilding your ultramatic brought back some memories.

Back in the early 90's the ultramatic went bad on the 56 Clipper that Brad Berry used as his daily driver, which he called the HONKER. I helped Brad pull the ultra from the Honker and watched him rebuild the trans, using no manual. the most interesting part that I remember was watching Brad put the clutch packs together.

The most funny thing that I remember while helping him, was when I asked him if was going to turn the parts in for warranty to Packard. You should have seen the look on his face at first, then he gave a draw on his pipe and just laughed.

When we got the trans pulled from the Honker before taking it apart it was laying on the cement floor next to his work bench. Brad asked me how we were going to get trans up onto the work bench, being as he had heart problems and couldn't do much heavy lifting. The converter was still on the trany as I remember and I told Brad to step back, I picked up the ultramatic and set it on the work bench for him. If that would have been an ultramatic with the cast iron case I don't think I would have been able to do that. Doing that kind of lifting is I guess why I have a bad back today.

Randy: Thanks for bringing back a pleasant memory.

John F. Shireman