The driver's side selector shaft seal can be replaced from the outside. I did this while the transmission was out of the car, but if you can get the car up high enough so you can work comfortably I think it can be done with the transmission in the car, others may want to weigh in here. You have to dig the old seal out, I used one of those cheap seal-extractor tools, but I think I had to augment that with use of pliers, screwdriver, etc, but be careful not to scratch the shaft or the seal bore. The seal is readily available from the vendors, and according to the cross-reference it is a standard seal (5569 SKF) though I got mine from Max I think.

I don't know enough about the Ultramatic driveshaft to be definitive, but there is a rebuild kit available from the vendors too, and somewhere on here somebody said that there is a Chrysler boot that works too.

I had a lot of leaks that was simply the oil pan gasket, it is a pain to take off but can be done again with the engine in the car, you have to disconnect the steering idler arm, and turn the engine so that the crankshaft is out of the way. RTV the gasket to the pan and then use a thin layer of lithium grease on the engine side, is what I did.

Looks to have an overdrive transmission attached, if I understand correctly. High bid is $22, in Wisconsin.

Yes it's a good question. I was under the impression that, if Packard provided it as an option, it must be o.k. Was a remote reservoir available for any of the other makes? Didn't some of the other makes install the BTV at an angle so the relief port was covered by fluid whether or not a remote reservoir was fitted?

From what I understand the 1.25-18 UNEF thread is the same as used in the Packard manual brake cylinders (as well as the top of the BTV), but as I don't have one I cannot confirm.

I think it could, in general. But I don't have enough experience with the normal variation in level due to thermal expansion/normal operation to know yet.

I haven't tried this one personally, but I am currently using their 6V positive ground LED-compatible flasher. It seems to work very well and is more tolerant, not only of lower-current LED bulbs, but also the state of ground connections which the original flasher was relatively intolerant of.

https://www.ledlight.com/round-flasher ... -150-watt-2-terminal.aspx

Hi Folks,

I purchased a remote brake fluid reservoir kit from Mr. Sanchez of Stonewall, LA. Contact info is in one of the pictures. Pricing was very reasonable. It included an extra cap for use in pressure bleeding. The cap used in the reservoir is the same size thread as used in the Treadle-Vac, so you can re-use that cap if you want, or use the vented one he provides, or (at least while parked) use the Bladder-style cap which isolates the system from the atmosphere I found in which was detailed in an earlier post:

https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/mod ... wtopic.php?topic_id=24577

This unit was designed for under-floor manual brake installations (for Hudsons originally I believe). I installed the unit using an L-bracket from a hardware store, slightly modified, using the existing holes for the drivers-side windshield washer pulley. Be careful to only take out one bolt at a time, always leaving one bolt in place, and you should not have any trouble, otherwise you may have to put the pulley back, which is a bit of a pain but doable.

Instead of the section of rubber hose in Mr. Sanchez' diagram I installed the unit once with the provided tubing and then measured and installed a solid piece of brake line, using the original installation as a template for bending. In my case that turned out to be a 20" long pre-flared piece that I purchased from NAPA.

I found I had to deepen (with a pipe tap) the threads at the cap down at the reservoir end so that I could screw the provided fitting down far enough such that it would fit under the steering column. I also had to do some work to the BTV reservoir cover gasket (basically taking it off, cleaning it up, and screwing it down really tight) to make that cover seal. I took the cover off, installed the cap and fitting, and installed the entire fitting/ cap/ cover/ gasket while the BTV unit was in place.

Tested this setup over a number of days and over 70 miles of combination freeway and in-town, seems to work well and contributes to piece of mind as I can observe easily if there is fluid loss and brake system maintenance is significantly eased.

Hope this is of interest.

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Here's one way to look at it:

Let's say your car originally came with 8.00-15 tires. Use the Vintage Tire Size Conversion Chart:

https://tengtoolsusa.com/blogs/news/vi ... ire-size-conversion-chart

So let's say you have 225/75 R15 tires on there now. Use the tire size calculator:

https://tiresize.com/calculator/

Those tires are therefore 28.3" diameter, 713 Revs/Mile. Which means at 60 mph, the rear wheel will be spinning at 713 rpm.

Now you say you have an effective ratio of 2.55:1 including the diff ratio and the overdrive. So you get at 60 mph the engine is spinning at 2.55*713 = 1818 RPM

I don't know what the "best" engine speed at 60 mph would be for your engine, but that's only about 3 times idle speed - probably about right.

The Packard 300/400 in 1953 with the Ultramatic had 3.54 gears on there, so they would be spinning 2500 RPM, which is a bit high.

I just wanted to say again thank you for this forum, and for the searchable history.

I just looked this thread up again because the dome light stopped working (same thing, just had to be wiggled around again to refresh the contacts), and I had to look up once more how to access the bulb. So useful!

I tried a 3/4" master out of Ford Courier with a 7" booster (also out of a Ford Courier IIRC), I put a post up with part #'s and pictures, you'd have to search back a while but it's there. I still have it stashed somewhere.

It DIDN'T WORK. The pedal force required was still too much. I had other people try it as well and they agreed. You are still off by a fair bit ( (5/8)^2/(3/4)^2 ) = 0.70, so you only had 70% of the standard braking force available. You would need a 1.25 or so pedal ratio to get back to where you were. Possible, maybe. But also the Ford Courier master cylinder was pretty small stroke, so that would be something to consider. In the case of brake fade might have to pump the brakes a lot.

At a 1" master you are at ((5/8)^2/1^2) = 0.40, or only 40% of the braking force available. You would need a 2.56 pedal ratio to get back to where you are.

Ross also points out that in some conversions of Studebakers that he's investigated the linkage, etc. was set up so the pedal could never travel far enough to actually "activate" the dual option, e.g. if one of the cylinder sections actually failed.

Recently I think the best way to go is to either move to DOT 5 or move to a low-vapor-absorption DOT 3 like Prestone MAX, and do things like in my earlier post about the "bladder cap", to keep moisture out when the car is sitting. That and frequent maintenance.

But I talked to some Packard people this weekend and they all said they used DOT 5, which I understand is what Kanter uses in their cars.

Kanter and Wilwood both sells Disc Brake conversions and I believe they are set up for the BTV, I would talk to them about it.