Re: Did you change your 6v. Packard to 8v or 12v?

Posted by Peter Packard On 2014/2/19 7:07:18

I ran my 38 Six for five years on 8 volts and it was a total disaster. Just about all of your power requirements go through your ammeter ( sorry....charge/discharge meter...it is not an ammeter apparently). If you are using the original voltage regulator, it must be temperature compensated. The 1938 Juniors were not and you were putting out 10.4 volts at initial start to maintain 9.6 volts required to keep an 8 volt battery charged. If you put your lights on within 1 minute of starting, you take a flash photo of the neighbourhood and have no light bulbs. The excessive charging current almost fried the charge/discharge meter. The 1941 regulator is temperature compensated but is not much better. You will not be happy with the 8 Volts. I went back to 6 volts and simply used a 51-54 eight cyl 6V starter with around 80% more starting torque. Forget the 8v batteries. They were invented for 6 volt Volkswagens with Bosch regulators and Negative earth situations. Good luck anyway if you decide to go that way. I have a brand new 8v never commissioned battery if you need one. Postage to the USA could be a problem. I run a 6v Positive Earth and 12 V negative earth system on my 38 Twelve and there are some amazing LED lights coming onto the market. I have 6 V LED's fitted to the rear tail and brake lights and they are amazing. PT