Bernardi,

The heat exchange unit is under the dash mounted in approximately the same position as the stock box was. It is a little longer but not quite as wide. Contains both heat and A/C exchanger and eliminates the box on the engine side of the cowl on the passenger side. I have it vented both to the original A/C vents in the dash and to the original defroster outlets. There is one air outlet on the box, itself, just a little toward the driver's side of the car and I have another outlet mounted to the bottom of the dash on the passenger side. The only two drawbacks that I've found with the system are that, although you can hook the heat/cold air cable to one of the levers on the original vent/heat/AC controls, the fan/AC switches are mounted on the interior exchanger box itself and I've not yet figured out how to make them work from the original controls. Too, the three speed blower fan switch that came installed in the unit was kind of cheap and the wiring connectors melted under the amperage of running the fan at high speed (twice). It did not over-amp enough to blow the built in fuzing that is designed into the system or the extra ones that I installed. The switch that comes with the unit just isn't up to its task. I finally replaced it with another that I found (I think) at radio shack that had adequate wire connexions. Yes, you can open and close the glove box without interference but you will find the installation of the exchanger unit is much easier if you remove the glove box and then re-install it after the unit is in place.

Nothing of course is perfect but I am well pleased with the system after replacing the shoddy blower fan switch. It has, as I said in my other post, been operating now for almost three years without problems and under (in Florida) almost constant usage.

Proper adjustment of transmission throttle linkage is indeed pretty critical as to shifting points on the Ultramatics. Should be covered in the Shop manual for your car. There was a rubber (I think) spacer bushing in the throttle linkage on my car that was worn out that initially caused me some problems in this area when I was trying to line out the transmission. I, too, have an add-on transmission oil cooler on my car of the type described in Eric's post above (it came from JEGS about three years ago) in addition to the factory one - also subscribing to the belief that you can't over cool transmission fluid.

I just read my previous post, the conclusion of which is (again) that HH56 is probably correct. It sounds as though a limit switch may have failed and that the motor is continuing to try to run, binding the rods, overloading the circuit and blowing the fuze.

HH56 is correct. I experienced this once when I forgot to turn off the load leveller and jacked the rear end of the car. Once it has gone through a limit the limit switches will not allow power to the levellizer. I pulled the '55 Pat onto a two track lift and very carefully shorted around the limit switch with a length of wire. This raised the rear end back past its built in limit, the system has worked normally since and I have never again had a brain fart of this nature (there've been a couple of others that we won't mention but - never that one again). This may not be your problem however. It is my understanding of the system that, once you've passed a limit the limit switches won't allow any power to the leveller. I did not blow the fuse. The leveller just would not power until the rear was back within limits.

More regarding the price paid for the car. Most people that I know think that I'm crazy for having spent what I did to buy my car, then spending close to $25,000 on it to get it where it is (not a perfect restoration but slowly getting closer to a very slightly modified acceptably refurbished driver) and then DRIVING it for daily transportation. To me - and from my admittedly rather peculiar ideas regarding the use of these cars - it was much cheaper than a new Mercedes S-class and oh so imminently more desirable. I'd have paid the price for it had I the wherewithall, kept it as completely original as humanly possible, cared for it like a newborn baby and gloried in driving it every day.

I'd choose (and pay for if able) a top of the line 56th Series, bone-stock, virtually new Packard for daily transportation needs, any day of the year, over a new S-class Mercedes. Even should I surprise everyone (including myself) and live another twenty to thirty years, with proper maintenance and care, my use rather than abuse and barring the odd catastrophe beyond my control, I could still hand it over to a Packard afficianado in near the same condition that I got it after being laid to rest for my dirt nap. It never was hard to take care of these cars. You just have to do it - and I doubt that thirty years of maintaining the Packard in top condition would be any more expensive than maintaining the Mercedes in like condition. A bit more time consuming, perhaps, but maintaining these cars is (to me) a major part of the enjoyment in owning it. After a certain period of time the fact that these cars were built to be maintained rather than thrown away would, in all liklihood, make maintenance rather more feasible than for the Merc (or whatever).

The whitewall size thing has been bothering me, too. There are experts frequenting this forum that will undoubtedly know what was correct but, somewhere in the back of my mind (which you all know is like a steel trap - rusty and full of mice) I seem to recall some 56th Series cars having narrow whitewalls when new. Realise fully that this could've been customer preference and dealer installations but, closely as I kept track of the cars as they appeared on the streets and at the dealer, I don't believe that I am wrong in my recollection.

Yes, the suspense is killing us. If indelicate to provide exact figure, give us an approximation of sale price.

No experience with anything built before the 1930s except for a '28 Essex, '29 Chevrolet truck and a couple of Model A Fords.

Within personal experience:

1938 12 Closed Coupe

1946-'47 Custom Super Clipper Sedan w/overdrive

1955-'56 (I can't remember which) Caribbean Hardtop

Guscha,

Regarding shipping rough cars to less developed areas; this has been a prevalent practise since at least the 1950s. If you can get the required basics to a location where vehicles are needed and labour is cheap miracles can be performed. Starting in the late eighties, as the full-sized American cars started being replaced with roller skates, you could actually get a premium for the big cars in certain foreign markets. The Kuwaitis and the Emirates were lucrative markets, especially for full sized Chevys, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and the like - as long as it was a full-sized car. I understand that this goes on to some extent in certain portions of the former Soviet Union yet today where the cost of putting a car back into serviceable condition is reasonable rather than outlandish, rechroming is both legal and affordable and bureaucracy either has not yet run rampant or is still easily bribed. I am given to understand from some of the contacts that I have left in foreign parts that creditable, even superior correct and pristine restorations of desirable classics and collector cars occasionally and miraculously appear out of isolated one or two person barn operations in such localities.

I suppose that government interference has probably discouraged a lot of this in Western Europe, as it has here, where environmental and safety, "standards," (another excuse to stifle competition, useful production and to put more legions of non-productive, government subsidised bureaucrats to work in most cases) are rigidly adhered to. Third-world countries and those on the fast track in developing the industrial capacity to replace that which we've driven off and given away are somewhat less particular and - as we evidently have yet to discern - MUCH more cost effective and productive.

Your posted photographs of swap-meets in your area bring back fond memories of the days of my youth when the affordable, safe, sensible resurrection of automobiles was still possible for most people in my locality.

Phred,

Go ahead and convert YOUR car in whatever manner pleases you and that you can afford. If you can't afford a $700 rebuild for an original 6V, positive ground radio or the astronomical cost (IF you could find original parts) of a 6V, positive ground A/C system; if your car overheats or the battery discharges sitting in modern city traffic with all accessories running or any number of other sets of circumstances, the cost of which restorations would equal a half-year's pay for some of us, do whatever you need to do to be able to continue to enjoy your car. I started a restoration on my car, when I got it. My financial situation changed and I am still, "restoring," with regard to my financial capabilities. Like Packard V8, I drive my car and, indeed, it's the only vehicle that I own. If I could afford a full and pure restoration, I'd STILL drive it but, in the interim, I do what I have to do, endeavouring to keep the power plant and mechanics as original as possible and trying not to do anything to the car that would prevent someone restoring it after I'm gone.

In a perfect world we should all be able to enjoy our cars. In this era of outlandishly inflated prices for parts, service and labour, complicated by outlandishly inflated currency and unrealistic expectations - we do what we can.

Perhaps our cars should be reserved for those with the financial wherewithal to, "properly," restore them to their original glory but, being a contrarian of the first order, I refuse to subscribe to that viewpoint.

Good on you. Fix up your car and drive it. Fully 90% of the population today has never seen a Packard and isn't even aware that anyone but GM, Ford and Chrysler ever made automobiles in this country and wouldn't know a pristine Packard from a nail clipper. Maybe one or two of them will see yours, think it's neat and save another two or three from the crusher. They could even, eventually, properly restore one.