Bowman, I may be reading your post and interpreting it badly.
First, put the car on jackstands - two at the lower A-frames and two supporting the rear end.
To make the motor run FOR A COUPLE OF REVOLUTIONS ONLY just to see if it works you must attach the negative battery terminal or jumper to a good ground and then touch one OR the other motor terminals with the positive lead. One terminal will make it run CCW and the other will make it run CW. That is just a test to see if the motor will work. If it does then you have a wiring problem to correct. You will need to disconnect the limit switches from the control box to unscrew them. Don't lose the copper washers on each switch. When you have the limit switches repaired and reinstalled disconnect the compensator control rod by removing the small nut securing the rod to the grommet at the main torsion bar. You can then manually move the control rod and thus the compensator control. Be patient as there is approximately a 7 second delay built in. If the mechanism now works satisfactorily, reconnect the rod. If not, double check the inline fuses under the hood near the solenoids. If necessary you can remove the field and armature as a unit but you will have to fashion a plate at the end of the motor to support the armature for any kind of testing. Good luck and let us know your progress.

I would be concerned about even turning the self levelling switch ON if the car is on jacks and not on the actual suspension as you could damage the system. An open circuit (broken) torsion level limit switch will certainly stop the system from working in the direction controlled by that limit switch. However, there are some very clever contributors to this site. Just don't touch anything or pull the motor out until you get a few more threads about where to start with the fault-finding. Best regards Peter Toet

My T/L motor is not working. I found broken wires at one of the limit switches and am in the process of fixing that. I tried putting a 12 volt jumper to each of motor terms but it would not spin. There was no sparks or anything, so I pulled the dust cover and was able to turn the armature a little in both directions with my fingers. The brushes look good and are seated squarely and making contact with the armature. everything looks clean inside and didn't see any corrosion. I checked across the motor terminals with ohm meter and got zero ohms, but it seems like I should have some resistance reading? It looks like the motor can be pulled out without pulling the compensator but I'm not sure and don't want to make things worse. I could use some guidance from here on, and it would be greatly appreciated.
I think if I can get the motor out to where I can see it on my bench I may have a better shot at fixing it. The car is in the driveway on jacks and not easy to see much under there as I'm sure all of you know from your own experiences.
Thanks.

Brian, if you can find the kit you bought, post the part number, and I can probably look up the contents for you, and also the application.

No doubt, NOS kits are the cat's pajamas as far as really, really fixing up your Treadle-Vac, but I always, always keep the old parts in an old Band-Aid snap-top tin for emergency use in case I run out of NOS!

Still, certain parts, like that lousy compensator port spring, do not come in any kit.

I recently scored a couple of major kits, and a complete piston packing kit for Hydraulic Reaction Treadle-Vac (the type used in 1957-59 makes and models) from an AMC source.

Buying kits is so often like getting a pig in a poke, whatever that means. Don't ever buy unless you can see the entire contents. I have a FoMoCo piston packing kit that I bought at a swap meet that is short the curved hose!
I didn't know the Ford kit included the hose until I looked it up in the Master parts catalog. Crap! I bought a short kit!

That's all right, though, the hose is usually OK as long as you twist some single strand copper wire around the ends after slipping them onto fittings to hold them in place. I've also heard of using nylon tie-wraps, but you'd better have one of those tie-wrap "guns" that get the fit real tight.

Gauss of the Edsels

Gauss -

Not sure who has which three Bendix kits.

I've installed a couple repro kits (purch'd from Kanter), which seems to have the same parts as the original Bendix minor kit.

However, I do have one NOS/NIB Bendix major kit , with its parts still sealed in their original bags. I purchased this kit over 15 years ago from a table at a swap meet in Ohio for just $40. The seller worked on old cars as an extension of a general auto repair shop that he'd operated for decades. He told me he didn't need the NOS kits anymore as they had been repro'd, but I'd only ever seen repros of the minor kits.

I thought the major kit that I have included a lot more than what you listed, but I'm thinking it may have had an additional bag of parts (perhaps inserted by mistake somewhere along its life). On the other hand, my memory could be faded and fuzzy.

Gauss -

Sorry I didn't have a chance to revisit this thread sooner, but welcome and thanks for the additional insights (saving me an expedition to my offsite storage).

I can only conclude that Bendix supplied the kits in some sort of tiered/modular fashion so the customer only had to pay for as deep as they had to go. Except for the potential issue of the compensator ports valve spring and pitted hydraulic plunger, I bet repro'd minor kit adresses the overwheming majority of needs.

Personally, I've never needed to overhaul the vacuum section in any of the TreadleVacs in my Packards, but dismantled and cleaned one - mainly out of curiosity. Yet, the seals were in good enough shape that I was able to carefully dismantle and inspect. I massaged the rubber parts with a bit of silicone grease prior to reusing them, and the power-assist worked fine following installation.

IIRC, Craig advised (long ago, in another forum past) that he had the T-V unit from his '55 Pat rebuilt by someone else and shipped it back after the first failure. He experienced a second failure, but I don't know if he sent it back to find out what went wrong. He installed a dual-chambered power brake unit with remote reservoir. Last I heard, Craig claimed that he would destroy TreadleVac cores from any parts cars he laid his hands on. Thankfully, Packard wasn't the only automaker using the T-V unit.

Now, I don't deny anyone the right to do with their property as they please, but in turn, they have no right "dis" on me for what I choose to do with my cars. I'm the kind of person who likes to find out what went wrong, how things were intended to work, and fix 'em myself. Though I'll never make flat-rate time, I've found that my work tends to hold up a lot better than what I've seen from many (so-called) professionals.

Thanks again for the details on the T-V kits.

If you guys can come up with a few different offical chat times then I will post them on the home page so everyone knows when to expect people to be on.

Perhaps an evening chat like 7pm PST - 10pm EST
A Moring Chat 8:30am PST - 11:30am EST
and some time of middle ground time on the weekends like
1pm PST and 4pm EST

And if we need to come up with a time for our Aussie folks we can do that to. I think once you all agree on some place holders and we get those posted, then people will know when other people might be on.

All times are suggestions, please discuss.

Dan,

Thanks for sending the 1st & 3rd Edition 1948 Owner's Manuals. They are now online for download. I should have those back in the mail to you tomorrow.

The late Steve Williams had a '56 Carib with an overdrive which was a dealer conversion. The high clutch pedal and the low power brake pedal looked clunky. Don't know where the car is now that Steve has gone.

thnx, jack vines

Brian, After looking at the Stude PDF I believe that 6480508 is the part number for the GH oil pump which just has a plate on the bottom. That number would be for a complete pump as the GH required and so they assigned it a later number as it is one year later in production.