Respectfully, absolutely do
n o t change your differential. It is a blessing in disguise if you're installing overdrive. Many install the slightly taller, more long-legged ring and pinions from cars leaving the factory without overdrive in overdrive cars for still more relaxed cruising on today's highways. There were Hudson dealers out West whose service departments often did this after the war for those driving long trips on increasingly faster roads, and imagine this done at Packard service departments, too. It is hard to over-gear a Packard, unless you live in the mountains and travel with a pair of Sumo wrestlers. You can always downshift, but it's a real drag to "run out of gears."
As late as 1950, most manual shift automobiles retained trucky rear axle ratios because not having to downshift, doing most driving in third gear, was a mark of refinement to people born or who came of age when horse-drawn delivery wagons still shared the roads. When your Packard was built, we still had speed limits as low as 35, and 60 was really moving. To many people, a little snappier acceleration was more important than reducing sustained piston speed.
This is not encouraging you to cruise at 80 mph, because brakes that were good for 1950, even by early '60s standards, are no match for today's ABS four-wheel discs and more crowded roads full of cellphone nattering, texting, tweeting folks eating, drinking, putting on make up. Well adjusted drum brakes can stop you as fast as discs, but can fade if repeated fast stops on mountain roads.
The other advice above is what you need. Jeff Adkins, Moose Motors, Penngrove (Petaluma, CA in the North Bay) has everything you need. (707) 792-9985,
packardguy54@sbcglobal.net Please tell him a '47 Super Clipper in Walnut Creek referred you.
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