Re: 55 Electrics

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2008/3/1 21:29:33

Well, you have thrown it out there that you aren't concerned about originality. You might as well go wieh a GM alternator, especially if you are adding AC. What's wrong with the wiring harness? '55-'56 Packards have a plastic insulation wiring harness and I've yet to see one on a functional car (not a junkyard car or left outdoors for 40 years to rot) that had a bad wiring harness. The torsion level compensator box will have to be gutted and fitted with new relays so that the box sends out a hot (+)12V when leveling is called for. I've done it, did one last year for a '55 Carribbean owner who didn't want to put the car back to pos. ground.
You are pretty much going to have to use a stock starter, I don't know of any replacements in the Summit catalog. The '56 starter is negative ground, so it sounds like you had a happy accident with that. It should bolt right up and work fine--I'm not aware of any big mechanical differences between '55 and '56.