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Ok so what’s going on here ….
Wire comes from the battery to a push button under the steering wheel , then to this relay .

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That appears to be the R11 OD relay and the terminal on that side of the fuse would normally have 6v coming from the BAT terminal on the starter solenoid so hot all the time. Is that the case? If so maybe that is a convenient point someone found constant 6v power and fed it to the pushbutton and then to somewhere else for another purpose.

If no power and the push button being depressed supplies power to the relay then something else is going on with the original supply to the relay and more information is needed. A pushbutton could be used to force kickdown or OD engagement without the governor but that is not the place something like that would be connected. If that is what the PB is doing there should be some other mods or missing components on the OD.

That appears to be in a 22-23 series so here is the normal OD wiring diagram.

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  48-50 R11 schematic.jpg (51.49 KB)

Ok so basically I need 6v there and if there is not , then I need to start going backwards till I find the opening in the circuit .

The electrical diagram shows the red(bk) wire coming from the battery to the 30 amp fuse, not routing to a PB switch, so wiring is most likely modified or your tracing the wrong wire. If there's no black tracer then it's also been replaced or added.
PB is usually momentary contacts, so not straight forward what going on here with partial info, as it's clearly powered direct from battery. If it's an on/off(twist) switch, then somethings being shut off/turned on.
Cars get modified as things happen and work or don't work and rather than fix them owners get inventive sometimes.
Part of the fun of owning one, is figuring out what's what.

Two questions
Is the car equipped with overdrive?
Does the horn work?
Many times I've seen a situation where a push button near the steering wheel ran to a relay to the horn Just a guess.

Yea the car has overdrive , at least I assume because the pull cable is beside the steering column . The horns are not on the car so I couldn’t tell if they work or not .

Ok so I found more clues as to what is going on . The OD cable has came out of the “handle” inside the car and appears to be in the pulled position but the knob itself is all the way in . Also the two wires on the lockout switch are both unhooked from the knob as well .

Hello Howard ,
I understand this wiring diagram you showed me . But what exactly is this one I have ? See below

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The drawing you have is for the R9 overdrive and postwar Electromatic Clutch combination from the 48 wiring diagram. OD was used from 1940 thru early 48 production. Sometime during the production of the 22nd series they switched to the R11 OD which is a much simpler unit -- both electrically and mechanically. The postwar Electromatic clutch portion stayed the same. The R11 unit lasted in various forms until the end of Packard production.

To positively tell which unit you have look at the OD relay. The R9 relay is a fairly large squarish black box with 6 terminals. The R11 is a smaller rectangle with 4 terminals and a fuse mounted on the long side. From the photo you posted in your first question it is the R11. The same lockout switch and cable was used on both units but the switch is wired differently. Under the car, on the R9 the lockout cable is on the passenger side, the R11 has it on the drivers side.

The end crimp failing and allowing the cable to come out of the OD lockout assy is fairly common if the steel cable rusts or becomes stiff inside the coiled outer housing. Once the crimp on the end loosens or splits there appears to be no permanent way to recrimp or solder the split and still be strong enough to hold.

Freeing the cable will most likely take a soak in some penetrating fluid and then a good lube to get it sliding again. I removed the cable and coiled it up fairly tightly in a shallow container so as to open the spaces between the wire coils on the housing and allow penetrating fluid to get inside. Once the cable is free and relubed a relatively painless fix for the damaged crimp is to buy a couple of split collars and clamp them over the end. If you cannot find them at a hardware store McMaster has a good selection. Don't remember if it takes a 5/16 or 3/8 ID clamp so measure your diameter. The original crimped portion will only hold one clamp but on this assy, for a smoother look like it was more a part of the original assy I used a lathe to bore out a small area of a second clamp so it would slide farther up the damaged area to allow the room for a second clamp.

On the lockout switch and hanging wires, there is no telling what someone has done so best to just start tracing each wire to see where or what else has been removed or bypassed. It is also possible the lockout switch plunger had a groove worn in the end so it no longer made a reliable contact to complete the circuit to the OD. Someone may have tried to rig up another way to enable OD.

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Wow thank you Howard !!
Yea I’m sure I have the updated OD system I can tell by the schematic it’s much simpler than previous . I’ll be working on my cable then we’ll see what happens . Thank you so much again !!