Re: Successful Packard Hunt

Posted by 55PackardGuy On 2012/11/12 22:31:30

Now I'm a little confused again with the statement that the rod "does not touch the master cylinder walls and push fluid ahead of it" While it's true that the rod itself doesn't do this, the piston at the end of the rod, which includes a valve, does apply pressure to the fluid in the master cylinder, correct?

On pg 18 of the BTV section of the '54 shop manual, there is a drawing that names this exquisite little piece of engineering the "Valve Rod"

So, there we've got it, I guess, as far as the name goes.

As far as operation, maybe I'm off base with the rod end "pushing" fluid, but I'm still trying to learn, here.

Unfortunately, I printed out the pages of the '55 manual that Brian mentioned and couldn't read the darn part labels on the illustrations.

I believe '54 was the first generation of the Packard version of the BTV, and maybe of any BTV, so they were probably struggling to keep the terminology consistent, as am I.

Before turning over the unit to someone and just saying "fix it" or "gimme a rebuild" I'd like to know as much as possible about what is going on inside that little sucker. To me, it's a pretty big part of automotive history.

Looking through Kimes, I can find no references to the initial offering of power brakes from Packard. Kind of strange. I take it they were an off-the-shelf item from Bendix, but were they modified for different makes? And in what automobile were they first offered?