Re: Engine & Gearbox Rebuild

Posted by Peter Packard On 2024/7/7 1:55:41

Hello Jazz, Sorry to hear about your engine and gearbox woes. Your 385 Patrician engine is a very reliable unit but it needs the Olds oil pump conversion big time. I have a 56 Patrician, which has been converted to RHD ( using Ford Fairlane Parts with some adaptation). I did not have any lifter noise ( My vehicle has 52,000 miles from original), but the Olds pump conversion lifted the oil pressure when hot but I ended up with a slight oil leak from the rear main. I converted my Generator to a 4WD alternator with vacuum pump to run the Packard vacuum wipers and used a fraction of the vacuum to pick up the rear main leakage into a catch can in the engine bay. The Twin Ultramatic is a good unit but relied on tight rotating component bush clearances rather than seals to maintain system pressure. The gearbox and can be quite fragile when shifted from Low to High and vice versa at high revs or high load conditions. Packard Ultramatic repair kits were last available in Australia until around 1978 (Vatco in Victoria). I bought half a dozen kits so the last fifty or so that they had probably went into the bin. I am the Technical Officer for the Packard Automobile Club of Australia. You should give me a call on 0408697105 we can have a chat. I would not recommend any Transmission shops to do your Twin Ultramatic as they are fine on the box but generally don't appreciate that the converter has a number of balanced entities within (apart from the converter as a whole ). The converter has to be carefully marked on disassembly and reassembled as such. I would recommend that you import a reconditioned box and converter from the US. It will not be cheap but you shall be more satisfied than fitting a SBC etc. Peter Toet

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