Re: In the dark

Posted by Kevin On 2023/11/13 9:28:14

For what it’s worth, I had a similar headlamp cut out happen to me in my 1955 Caribbean on the way home from a parade and post party.

I found that the root cause was the headlamp harness that goes from the junction blocks on the fender splasher, passes through the radiator core support, and then through a hole in the fender, splasher, so that it can connect to the back of the headlamp.

The rest of the wiring in our cars is plastic coated, but Packard chose to reuse the same cloth covered harness whose part number goes back to the 1941 Clipper. The problem is that the cloth becomes brittle and fragile as it ages, a condition that is not helped by the fact that the forward part of the harness is not protected by an inner fender or wheelhouse liner. Further, this harness passes over several raw sheet metal edges that can wear away at the old and weakened fabric.

I found that my headlamp harnesses were shorting out against these sheet metal edges under certain conditions. The fix was to purchase reproduction harnesses from Max Merritt.https://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb.dll?parta~dyndetail~Z5Z5Z50000022e~Z5Z5Z54101~P65.00~~~~S6RA0MCWGG18514199966b~Z5Z5Z5~Z5Z5Z50000022E

My headlamp switch and breaker had been functioning as designed, I just needed to address the root cause that was making them trip.

Hope this helps!