Packard Guardian Angel?

Posted by Craig Hendrickson On 2009/6/8 15:56:13

OK, I'll jump in to start this off.

When I bought my 55 Pat in Jan 1999, I drove it from Portland, OR to las Vegas, NV, a trip of 1,100 miles. The old guy I bought it from was only the owner for a couple of months as he had bought it on spec from the long-time owner. Anyway, he, the current owner, knew zip about Packards. So, he happily informed me that it had a new battery which he had installed.

Little did he know that he had connected both the previous battery and the current battery negative ground, rather than the (then) required positive ground. I did not know that much about Packards at that time, so, I just passed it off. Besides, the AMP gauge showed "charge", not "discharge", so the electrics had to be OK, right?

Some 900 miles later rolling into Barstow, CA at 9PM, the head lights were dimmed to almost non-existence. The short version of this story is that I limped into an 24-hr Wal-Mart after a couple of battery jumps from passersby. I bought a new battery. Then I vaguely remembering that 55 Packards were positive ground, I hooked it up that way, rather than negative. The rest of the trip to Las Vegas was a non-event, with the headlights bright.

The "Packard Guardian Angel" part is that had the battery depletion happened, say, 50 miles to the East, then I would have been in the middle of the freakin Mojave Desert in Death Valley in the middle of the night!!! Goodness only knows what the outcome of that would have been.

I believe that it still has a guardian angel named "Packard" overlooking it and me. To wit, 3 failures of BTV and a few other "adventures." But not a nick on it nor me.

Craig