Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

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That, I feel, is the perfect solution for those of us that simply don't trust the BTV... and

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Howard, I'm looking forward to your summary.

If a person were to do the fabrication themselves, what do you think the total cost involved would be?

Thanks very much for doing this Howard. Makes me feel much better as what to do about the BTV situation when I start restoring my car.

I look forward to seeing what you do next with it and other peoples' experiences in doing your conversion. Love it that it is reversible. Great job!

To patch the carpet:

Cut the patch PLUG with a champfer on it. A champfer so that the top shaggy exposed carpet side is a smaller diameter than the backing of the plug.

Cut the carpet to be patched with a mateing champfer.

Place the patch plug into place from BEHIND the carpet and use somekind of suitable semi rigid thin material cut about 50% larger than the hole patched. Use cement to cement it all together.

Patching on a curved or compound curved area gets a little trickier and need to use something like duct tape as a support backing instead of thin plastic or other semi rigid material.

After it has dried and set up then use somekind of coarse comb type tool to kind of weave the carpet surface together around the edges. Usualy just brush it a little bit back and forth with your fingers.

Here is the first two sections of the writeup. Complete with verbosity (aka longwindedness). Before I post the drawings and detailed how to build and install the parts, would like to know how the thing comes across and if materials lists can be read. Don't want to post more if it's too small and can't be deciphered. Hopefully, there are no glaring errors or omissions but hope someone says so if they find any.

EDIT Already a small error. I had to make a substitution in part 2. One wrong picture didn't get changed in the first version. Nothing that changes anything in the writeup but it showed the side of a piece before some alterations were made that are referenced in a later section.

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Hello,

Well done. Very good write up. Good engineering.

I personaly prefer a firewall mount. Keeping the car stock

does not matter to me.

Jerry

HH56 has FACTORY air conditioning. THerefore firewall mount is not possible.

Well, I see there have been a few downloads of the first two parts with no negative comment posted.

While I know it's not for everyone, for those that might be interested the lack of comment leads me to conclude 1), all came across readable, 2) one look told you it was too complicated so forget it, or 3) you fell asleep during the first paragraph.

With hope it being 1), here are the last sections with build and drawings and then installation. Hopefully, no major omissions or screwups in these.

As mentioned in various posts, this was designed around a 56 with pushbutton shift. I believe the linkages (at least the Ultramatic) will all clear for those cars but I did not have one to check against. While again not checked, I think it will also work on earlier cars since that BTV area is so similar. What I don't know on the earlier cars is what the linkage looks like at steering box since I know those go further down. There are a few pictures in the installation showing the clearances down there so anyone thinking of one would do well to check carefully.

Anyway, here's today's cure for insomnia.

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I knew this would happen as soon as I posted completed drawings. Also realized a large faux pas on my part-----I neglected to thank Craig for the original idea, Keith for his guidance and all those that posted some photos of their linkages and other items for their assistance.

As to what happened, while hallucinating last evening, had a realization that an old version method of doing the shaft would work with the new side pieces in this posted build. The 3/8 screw and bushing on the shaft end holding all in place could be eliminated by a longer shaft, 3/4 bushing and all now held in by a cotter key or roll pin on each end. That would eliminate doing one of the hardest things in this fabrication--namely drilling a centered hole in end of shaft and tapping it. The same setup should also work on the lever side where I expressed some concern about wanting a better way to retain the bushing. It didn't work earlier because of the former shape and location on the right side. While it will be very close spacing on the right plate and floorboard, I measured this morning and it will work. There is even room to add a bit of metal to the side piece where bushing sits since it would need a 7/8 hole.

There doesn't seem to be as much interest in the drawings nor did I expect much in the build so won't make another one for photos but if there is any interest, could update a couple of pages in plans showing the option. The current version seems to work very well as far as I can tell, and isn't horrible to make (I could do it) with a decently equipped shop but obviously isn't for all.

If there are any engineering types that was curious enough to download, would sure like an opinion on any other ways to do the lever connections with a view toward eliminating one or both heim joints. Drilling & tapping that rod and piece is the one remaining bit of work to build. For the pedal end, had thought of a length of threaded rod with possibly an outer sleeve of steel tubing for a covering or more support but am concerned 5/16 is too small with the shape of the lever and anything larger would need a larger bearing assy and make any type joint too big to mount on pedal decently.

Any new discoveries or developements on this project??? Had a test run yet???? It all looks pretty good to me.