Re: 1955 Patrician - On The Road Again Journey

Posted by HH56 On 2024/2/12 14:46:45

It really sounds like a grounding or bad turn signal switch issue. Because of oxidation issues in and around the pot metal the front parking light housings have been somewhat problematic. The socket is crimped to the housing and sometimes the pot metal between the housing and socket corrodes and connection deteriorates to the point that several have had to fasten a dedicated ground wire directly to the bulb socket and run that separately to a known good ground point on the sheetmetal. The switch could have one or more contacts dirty or if the phenolic support board is warped, not making contact.

Verify the indicator bulbs are in the correct sockets if the wrong one is lighting but the way the bulbs are powered and wired together the issue could also be in the switch if a contact is not being made. Packard used a flasher with a separate but single output to power one side of both indicator bulbs simultaneously. To have the correct direction bulb light the bulbs do have a unique grounding route so only one bulb can be on at a time. This is done by having the indicator bulb's other wire connected to and grounded thru the front outside bulb on the opposite side of the side flashing. An indicator bulb for the flashing side is able to light by being connected in series to find a ground thru the unenergized opposite front bulb filament. The bulb not wanted to flash stays dark because with the system in operation it is seeing the same voltage on both wires at the same time. This is controlled by the turn signal switch being able to isolate and completely disconnect one front side or the other.