The 1954 Patrician is a bit of an odd duck. The instrument cluster and rear door exterior trim are clearly 1954, but the taillights are 1953. There are no photos of the front end, curious to see what year trim is on that.

As Howard notes above, the exposed pin on the connector is negative and should it touch metal anywhere on a positive ground car you'll get the sparks. What I did was cut the wiring going to the battery terminals and reverse-spliced them back together. This gives you a positive-grounded exposed pin so the fireworks won't happen. This doesn't affect the tender's performance at all. Just be sure not to reuse that wiring on a negative ground car.

Packards of that era didn't have voltage regulators as such. The cube on top of the generator houses what is called a generator cut-out. Based on what I read here, I'm not at all confident that replacing the cut-out will solely correct the charging problem. I'd recommend to send the generator assembly out for diagnosis and probable rebuilding.

I have it. It totals 16 pages. Now, I could ask PackardBob to PM me his address and send him a photocopy, or I could scan it and try to upload it here. Is there enough interest in the late Mr. Fisher's products to justify the upload, would it be helpful to others on Packardinfo?


Update--Scanned and e-mailed the 16 pages to Packard Bob. Any others interested?

Rechecking for the 1901's shows the cap and rotors are identical, but the point sets are different, the shafts are different, breaker plates are different and so on. Still seems unlikely that either one could substitute for the other. A trial fitting would let us know for sure.

Based on what the 1935-41 Parts List shows (pages 69-79) I would conclude that there are few, if any interchangeable parts between the two distributors. The 316247 is an Auto-Lite IGT-4004; the 362884 is an Auto-Lite IGP-4502. Neither Packard nor Auto-Lite would show different part numbers if these distributors were identical. Looking at the distributors' internal components also shows different Auto-Lite part numbers for the 120 vs. the 1900; for instance, the drive shaft assembly for the 120C is IGT-1034-L and the 1900 is IGT-1020LB, see page 74. This divergence continues through the pointsets, cam and stop assemblies, even the distributor caps carry different part numbers. So I could only conclude that there are vast differences between the two and interchangeability is unlikely.

According to page 11 of the 1954 owner's manual that switch operates the windshield wipers. However, on my 1954 Convertible it operates nothing that I can see; it's puzzling as to why it's there. I have a similarly-shaped knob hanging down under the dash below and slightly to the left of the ignition switch that does operate the wipers; this switch is not shown in the owner's manual.

Regarding the '53-'54 mishmash convertible: There is a minor difference in the senior grilles for '53 and '54. It is in what Packard calls the front guard cross bar, the bar that runs between the two bumper guards, or "Dagmars." In the '53's, the chroming only runs so far back and the rear section has an aluminized-looking finish. This is very visible in photo #12 of the listing. In the '54 seniors the chroming runs all the way to the back end of the bar. The '48 through '54 Parts List bears this out. There are different part numbers for these bars, see group 2.00504 on page 33.

O_D is spot on in noting the '54 instrument panel. I missed that as my attention was drawn to the steering wheel center cap or horn button. It is correct for a '51 and available in reproduction so it's common on '51's through '54 restorations today. To my knowledge no one is reproducing '54 buttons with the maroon background.

A look at the VN plate on the left side door jamb is needed to determine the model year on this one. The front grille is from 1953 although it has the 1954 headlamp bezels. As O_D mentions, it does look like a 327 engine and the air filter housing is wrong for a 359 engine. The side trim is incomplete for a '54 and it's also incorrect for a '53. The taillamps are from before 1954 and the backup lights are in the wrong location for 1953. The rear bumper looks like it came from a junior car, lacking the pieces that run atop the bumper that came with the senior cars. The price may be attractive but it looks like it was made up from a jumble of '54 and '53 components.

A look at the VN plate on the left side door jamb is needed to determine the model year on this one. The front grille is from 1953 although it has the 1954 headlamp bezels. As O_D mentions, it does look like a 327 engine and the air filter housing is wrong for a 359 engine. The side trim is incomplete for a '54 and it's also incorrect for a '53. The taillamps are from before 1954 and the backup lights are in the wrong location for 1953. The rear bumper looks like it came from a junior car, lacking the pieces that run atop the bumper that came with the senior cars. The price may be attractive but it looks like it was made up from a jumble of '54 and '53 components.