Re: 56 TL Suspension Nervousness

Posted by BH On 2007/8/21 21:22:18

Randy -

Yes, I should have reiterated that my approach bypasses the limit switches, which were put in the system to prevent overtravel and damage to the levelling system.

Yet, I have even bypassed the solenoids and used a good old heavy set of jumper cables to make a direct connection from the positive post of the battery and to either one of the field terminals on the case of the compensator motor to "manually" level a car in a pinch.

If you keep your hand on the jumper and an eye on the position of the rear bumper, the system does not react so fast that you can't break the circuit and avoid a problem.

In fact, when using a jumper cable as noted above, I always have to experiment a bit to see which way the suspension is gonna go, but I've never had a case where the system got away from me. However, if the system is already run to its limit, experimenting is no longer an option.

More often, it is from the driver's seat that you cannot tell when the system is about to go too far and cause damage. The rear bumper of my '55 Patrician had to be over 3 feet off the ground before I realized there was a problem and hit the cut-off switch. It tore up the limit switch and bracket in the process, but appeared to stop short of bending any linkage or twisting the splines. I find the changes that Packard made to the system for the 56th Series to be a welcome improvement

As such, I've no doubt that this is why the factory wired the manual control switch retrofit through the terminal board of the compensator oontrol switch.