Interesting and good to hear about the retrofit power steering unit from MM. As I get more decrepit I may want to take advantage of that.

Jim L. in OR

"Out of luck" expresses it better than anything I can come up with; but thanks for the answer.

Does the 24th Series AKA 1951 have an access panel like this for the Ultramatic? I'm not looking forward to crawling under the car each time I want to check the transmission fluid level.
Sorry about butting in on this.

Hey, thank you for the tip!
There were a lot of hoops to jump through to reply to the posting, but I left him my e-mail address. Hopefully, he won't have the trouble replying the way some have told me about.
I'll keep you up to date on my "quest".

Thanks again,

Jim

My new '51 Packard arrives Wednesday sitting on 30+ year old tires so I've been following everything written on this string including the one from the Imperial Club Website and I'm getting really confused.
First of all are the '51 rims usable with Tubeless Tires? I see from the above that they were first offered on '54s, hence the question.
Second, I realize that words like "handling" "ride" can be subjective terms. For someone who likes to race through mountain roads good handling and ride has a different meaning than to one who actually likes the very soft ride that was the norm in the '50s. What I've seen here is that bias ply tires for some provide a softer ride while others claim radials are best for a soft ride. What I'm looking for due to a very bad back, are tires that will provide the softest ride. I don't intend to do any high speed freeway driving with this car and my daily driver can provide the "handling" necessary when I feel the urge to drive fast on curves.
Last but not least I know that tire pressure impacts ride as well as the suspension. The "Operator's Manual" for '51 recommends cold tire pressure at 24psi. Of course, that was printed when bias tires were "it". If I did go for radials, what would be the correct psi?

Thank you all for wealth of information you've given during my steep learning curve here. It's gone a long way towards making my long overdue return to Packard doable.

I also want to thank the members in the Portland area like Steve Fisher who have offered help, advice, tools and experience as well as John Wallis who has been of great help in my search for a '56.

Jim L. in OR

You're more than welcome.
If you wind up needing the "Packard 110" caps, let me know and I can send you a picture of these.

Ah, so that's it. That's better than the dual bulb I was thinking about. I've found with my '75 Lincoln Mark IV that some of the older specialty bulbs (like the cornering light bulbs) are getting hard to find.
Thanks for putting me straight.

Jim L. in OR

Hi John

I am interested....
My e-mail address is jdlpdx@comcast.net.
I wish we lived closer.

Jim L. in OR

They have always struck me as another Packard "first". 20 years later Ford & GM would put simular lights on the "B" and/or "C" panels and call them "Coach Lights". I didn't know they were dual output bulbs.

Jim L. in OR

Hi Victor,

I have a couple of Packard 110 hubcaps that I took off a pre-war (I think it was a 40 or 41) coupe when I was 10. No, I didn't steal them, the car was behind a Shell station in Albany that belonged to a family friend. If I remember right, the car had a blown engine or some such and was headed to a salvage yard. As I remember I thought even then it was a waste because the car was really in pretty good shape. It was the first 6 cylinder Packard I had ever seen.
Back to the hubcaps: they still have the original factory paint and around the hexagon are the words "Packard 110" two times. One is really very very nice, the other could use some touch-up on the paint. Chrome is very good on the better of the two, and driver quality on the other. It maybe that it just needs polishing but I've never tried.
Let me know if you are interested as they aren't doing me any good. I can take a picture and send it to you.

Jim L. in OR