Stude, all comments and opinions are welcome here. Sometimes one person's idea sparks an inspiration and a new solution is found. Right now I would be satisfied to move the PB unit to a position that would allow simple access for maintenance. I am slow but persistent as hell and if my friend comes up with the shift links this weekend, I will test fit the PB unit. In the meantime I am assembling my parking lights and rebuilding my headlight terminal junction blocks. I'm waiting on a lady to clean up her garage enough to put my 400 in it so I can have room in mine for the front fenders. Then I can yank the engine and proceed from there.

Thanks for the encouragement. It does seem to be all there, chrome and all and very straight with only minor damage to a taillight. I found this car quite by accident and wasn't even looking, but a friend who just restored a 49 came acrossed it and new that 51 was the year I always wanted. I came home from the hospital in 1966 in a 51 Packard and my father and mother always said it was their most favorite car they have ever had. This is as much for them as me, but I havent told them yet about it. I want to suprise them.

Great pics and thanks for the warm welcome from everyone. I had hoped to get the car at least started this week, but my mechanic friend and I decided it was way too hot ( around 100 degrees) so we will wait till it cools off a little. I put some pics of it on the restoration forum. Again thanks for the welcome.

Gentlemen: I am new here and new to Packards as far as maintenance. Dad always drove them long before his company, Studebaker, merged with them, and my first car ride home from the hospital was documented in a photo of dad holding me in front of his postwar Clipper. I digress, sorry. I specifically sought out a 56 Patrician with as many options as possible to enjoy, and now have 2, both with PB trans. I have only been under my latest car once and see the difficulty with the actuator access. Luckily mine works fine, but there will certainly come a time, right? I am wondering why the unit would need to be attached to the trans at all. Is there any real estate nearby on the floor pan or the frame that would conveniently accommodate the unit? If so, it may be possible to connect to the trans via a short teleflex (push-pull) cable. You may have seen these commonly used as steering cables on outboard boats, but they are used extensively in many aircraft I have maintained for critical controls such as engine power, etc. If of good quality, and as short as they would be, they would be very precise with no wasted motion . Actually you could mount the unit in the trunk with the right teleflex cable setup. Just brainstorming. No point in doing a lot of engineering for a modest improvement when you could make the r&r a 10 minute job with a bit of imagination.

I want to tell you all how glad I have been to find this group and how much I have learned already. The other forums were a bit stuffy or something, and I understand why this was created. Hope I can contribute as I discover my new Packard. Thanks!

Brian,

Thanks for the detail on the original houndstooth trunk lining. I too noticed the pattern was off but still felt the overall appearance looked good for non-original. My Carib still has the original lining although very worn.

I agree with you that in this modern digital age that reproducing the pattern on high quality material would be a winner for one of the larger Packard vendors. And if two of tbe larger vendors produced it then it would hopefully be competitively priced :) And to paraphrase the words of Arlo Guthrie, "if three vendors produced the same thing they it would think it was a movement..."

Have a good weekend folks...its 102 here in Atlanta.

Robert.

that is NOT the factory AC set-up. That appears to be a York compressor (or at least it looks somewhat like a York) and the Packard OE air conditioning used a Lehigh V-4 compressor, looks nothing like the York-style sidewinder.
I've never seen a V-8 car where the body/VIN plate was painted. Looks like Billy-Bob and Cooter set up shop and have gone "professional"

Can someone shed some light on AC unit? I can"t make it out but it almost looks like a Packard script and crest on unit. I don't recall ever seeing mention of anything but the in dash factory unit or the trunk unit Studebaker had. Dealer item or someone making it fancy or am I hallucinating??

Robert,

Trunk detail on that car is not quite correct, and I have yet to see a fully-authentic trunk lining set repro'd for these 56th Series cars.

The pattern on the material used in that Carib skips a row and column - something an owner might not notice if they only had a small scrap of original material from their '56 Packard. I believe Joel (packards1) pointed that out, at Perrysburg this year, and told me that pattern was used in Mustang of the 60s.

A few years ago, Randy Berger announced that he had found a supply of the original Burtex material - in the correct pattern. I was skeptical, but he sent me a scrap and it exactly matched the the original trunk lining in my Patrician sedan and Carib H/T. However, that inventory appears to have since been exhausted.

Also, the original lining sets in my cars does not have contrasting binding.

As many '56s as I have seen with incorrect lining, and in this day and age of digital imaging and printing, you would think that someone would have repro'd the material and sets by now.

Of course, money is always an issue - on both the supply and dmenad side fo the equation

Notice the incorrect heat shielding for the 2x4 setup.

I like the twin spotlights and the trunk detail. Too bad it's not the original MES 92.

Is anybody reproducing the houndstooth trunk set?

Thanks,
Robert.