Re: KPack's 1954 Panama
Posted by HH56 On 2020/9/20 9:56:20
For the oil, a 1/8 NPT street tee threaded into the port where the existing sender is located would be the simplest method. Remove the sender, add the tee in its place and replace the sender in the tee. Use the other tee port for a mechanical tube going to the oil pressure gauge under the dash. Amazon and ebay stock the street tees. You might even find them locally.
For the temp sender it gets a bit more tricky. For an accurate reading the sender elements really need to be immersed in the flowing coolant. A tee will inevitably have one or both elements in sort of a dead area because there will be no flow past them. A possible solution would be another 3/8 NPT street tee in the heater outlet on top of the head for the extra gauge. Place a bulb type sensor for a mechanical thermometer in the top port and if it is long enough the bulb end will extend thru the tee and down into the flowing coolant with nothing else needed. If not long enough, having the heater valve open to let coolant run thru the heater core will provide the flow. As long as the air flapper valve is working so air is not flowing thru the heater core the constant water flow should not be much of an issue when the heater function is not wanted.
An alternative to the tee in the heater outlet would be to buy an adapter to place a sensor in the radiator hose or fabricate an adapter to fit under the thermostat housing to position the sensor bulb in water flowing to the radiator. Downside to that approach is there would be a sort of dead time until the thermostat opened to let water flow. There are commercial adapters that are made to add fan sensors directly in the radiator hose but since Packard used a fairly large hose the adapters in that size are somewhat hard to find. I am sure they are out there but since I didn't really want to cut the hose decided to build my own adapter using a 1" aluminum block and position it under the thermostat housing rather than try to find a commercial hose unit in the larger size. I don't remember the size and shape of the housing for 54 so the adapter might need to be different.
Attach file:
(188.32 KB)
(74.73 KB)
(117.70 KB)
For the temp sender it gets a bit more tricky. For an accurate reading the sender elements really need to be immersed in the flowing coolant. A tee will inevitably have one or both elements in sort of a dead area because there will be no flow past them. A possible solution would be another 3/8 NPT street tee in the heater outlet on top of the head for the extra gauge. Place a bulb type sensor for a mechanical thermometer in the top port and if it is long enough the bulb end will extend thru the tee and down into the flowing coolant with nothing else needed. If not long enough, having the heater valve open to let coolant run thru the heater core will provide the flow. As long as the air flapper valve is working so air is not flowing thru the heater core the constant water flow should not be much of an issue when the heater function is not wanted.
An alternative to the tee in the heater outlet would be to buy an adapter to place a sensor in the radiator hose or fabricate an adapter to fit under the thermostat housing to position the sensor bulb in water flowing to the radiator. Downside to that approach is there would be a sort of dead time until the thermostat opened to let water flow. There are commercial adapters that are made to add fan sensors directly in the radiator hose but since Packard used a fairly large hose the adapters in that size are somewhat hard to find. I am sure they are out there but since I didn't really want to cut the hose decided to build my own adapter using a 1" aluminum block and position it under the thermostat housing rather than try to find a commercial hose unit in the larger size. I don't remember the size and shape of the housing for 54 so the adapter might need to be different.
Attach file:
(188.32 KB)
(74.73 KB)
(117.70 KB)
This Post was from: https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=226712