I measured the distance from the tab on the vent to the edge of the dash edge, it comes out to approximately 2 9/32". Don't know if any of you can take a measurement on a dash you have but if not, does this look about right?

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Gerry sold that Caribbean about a year or 2 ago. I am familiar with the car. The A/C on that car was a dealer install done a long time ago, not factory. Gerry is the gentleman that took my engine and trans out of my car and shipped them for rebuild to Jack Vines and Ross Miller, respectively. I know Gerry very well getting parts, advice and services from him.

In 2020, there were only 1 '55 & 2 '56 Seniors listed in the local San Diego area per the PAC club roster. Anything beyond Oceanside to the north (Orange County) and Alpine to the east I didn't try to contact. I got in touch with the gentleman that owned a '55 and "56, neither had A/C at all. I Left a message for the owner of the other '56, but he never got back to me after a few tries. I agree with you that it is better to check out an original factory installation.

All I can say is I did the best I could with what I had. All the cutouts I used the templates for came out correctly and had no problems, except this one.

Even if the templates were accurate (and it's always a possibility they were not), I would double-check before doing cuts and installation.

Having worked for many years of my career at the OEM level of the car biz, I can assure you: specifications get changed. Often several times. Were those templates merely templates? Or final specification templates?

Furthermore, paper templates (or copies thereof) passed around all these years through machines, scanners and internet and how many hands just allow for too many bad outcomes.

Even workshop manuals get out in publication with errors in them. Usually such things are remedied with Service Bulletins. But this is just the nature of the car biz.

Again... I always check with an actual production-level car. Compare what you have with an actual system installed at the factory. Take measurements and photos. There are a bunch of Packard V-8 factory A/C vehicles still alive and breathing in this world– even in 2023.[/quote]

I realize repeated copying documents has a somewhat "shrinking" effect of the scale on the drawing. The Packard template number was 475210. I wouldn't think that this "shrink" would cause something to be around 1/16 to 1/8 inch off. R/H side is good, though.

I don't have any service bulletins with regard to the A/C system, are there?

I live in San Diego and at the time I did the dash mods, over 3 years ago, there were no '55 or "56 A/C cars, that I knew of among the club members.

The template I used for the top of dash cutouts was from the actual Packard drawing I got from the Studebaker Museum, see photo. I laid the template over where I cut the dash now and all the features match that template. The question now is "How to make it Work".

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I noticed the "dimple" but it's on the wrong side of the vent base. Looking at my photos and your photo, the dimple is towards the L/H side whereas the socket is towards the R/H side. When I cut the holes in the top of the dash, I used the templates from the Packard drawing with the instructions on how to retrofit the car posted on this site. The vent base lays very well in the top curve of the dash. Maybe when Just Dashes redid the top pad the foam pad wasn't thick enough. I have no idea how thick the original factory pad was as the previous owner had some outfit do a real sloppy job of installing new foam on the dash top. But then again, the Clipper's didn't have padded dashes???

Anyone who has retrofitted a '56 or '55 Senior Packard with factory A/C system run into this situation? The end of the R/H turn signal blinking light socket hits right on the lower part of the lower A/C duct. See pics. This will make it difficult to fit the rubber duct onto the vent. The only thing I can think of is to cut a notch in the rubber duct, although I would rather not do this if somebody knows of an alternative.

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I did mine a few months ago, it's a silver paint according to my body guy. My grill was NOS with some scratches in the silver paint part. I had them redo the entire grill. It looks great. Pic is of the front, I can take another if you want of the silver paint.

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Couldn't find any old or NOS lines for an A/C car. I had to custom make my lines. First, I had to install the compressor bracket with the oil filter mounted to it to the engine (compressor off the bracket, much easier that way). Got about 6 feet of tube, cut in half. Then got new fittings, flared one end and installed fittings on the tube. Installed the one end each in the block and bent the tubes to fit, lastly screwing the other ends into the oil cannister. Took some time but it worked.

I should have clarified to everyone as to what I am doing. I'm retrofitting a non a/c '56 Packard Caribbean with a factory a/c system per the instructions posted on this site. Most of the important parts I have are NOS: condenser, evaporator, expansion valve, Lehigh compressor, rubber hoses (bought those back in the 80's before R12 became the boogey man) and have a line on an NOS modulating valve. Evaporator and case are mounted in the car ready to install expansion and modulating valves. Then ready to re-install instrument panel.

I took apart an A/C modulating valve and don't see why it wouldn't work with R134a. It's all metal on the inside, no rubber that I can see. Anybody else take one of these apart?