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I got to thinking about this and it would be be very poor eng'ring to have a tag lite or just one tail lite short out and the CB turn off the headlites too.

CB is for those turned on & fed by the switch--head, tail, park, dash, license, running etc. Most all others are protected by the body feed fuse. Although the courtesy lights can be turned on by switch, it is via ground side and fused separately.

Looks like another modification that needs to be made. I don;t like the idea of a tag lite shorting out and i wind up loosing all lites. No????

Packard had competent engineers and all contemporary car makers wired their cars just as Packard did. I have never read or heard of a problem with this setup and I doubt there is one. If a tag or other light has a short, which is very unlikely, the circuit breaker opens up temporarily, then closes putting the headlights back on. It was engineered that way for safety.

Surely you can put a fuse or circuit breaker on each individual light but why??

"and all contemporary car makers wired their cars just as Packard did."

No one bought Packard because they didn't expect better or even best!!

No one owns Packard today because they don't expect better or even best of the vintage.

The way the wiring runs and splits/splices, about the only place you could fuse the lights separately and protect the most vulnerable wires would be a single fuse or breaker either at the headlight switch terminal connection feeding the rear or at the area the loom enters the trunk cavity. A problem in one light would still take everything at the rear out but the headlights would probably stay on -- Depending on the speed of the breaker, they might trip off and then reset once though. Otherwise, it would be a single fuse at each light protecting maybe a foot of wire and that particular socket. To my thinking, not very efficient doing it that way.

I believe it was Eric that had a short in the trunk wiring on his car which popped the breaker when he made a certain turn. I don't remember if he mentioned where the problem was found but the one susceptible area not in plain sight is the small trough or wire channel between trunk floor and outer body panel below trunk lid. Things fall down there, get jammed and can damage the wire. There are also a couple of holes where wires exit to tag lights that can lose their grommet. Keeping an eye on that stretch and keeping anything away from the tail light sockets would probably be easier than adding any more fuses.

I mention the socket because a friend with a 54 ambulance used as a daily driver kept spare cans of oil and a couple of other things in a compartment near and open to the tail light. Something was free to move in such a way that it was forced against a wire as it entered the socket and damaged the insulation. He chased a tripping breaker problem for ages whenever he went over a large bump or had some jerky movement until he went for a can of oil one day and found the problem. Tool boxes or other items crammed into that conveniently sized nice out of the way space could do the same thing on a regular car.

Packard V8 posted


"No one bought Packard because they didn't expect better or even best!!

No one owns Packard today because they don't expect better or even best of the vintage."

Packards like the Clipper and Executive were not in the luxury class of vehicles, they were competitive with lower priced Buicks etc. The Senior Series was in the luxury class with Cadillac etc. Clipper, 110, 120 and Executive buyers knew they were buying a mid-priced car and did not delude themselves into thinking they were buying a Rolls Royce or Bentley. Maybe some people these days are.

Packards have two braking systems, the hydraulic foot brake and the mechanical hand brake. Rolls Royce had three, hydraulic foot brake, mechanical hand brake and a reserve mechanical foot brake. Rolls Royce in the 50's also had numerous intricate systems like no other car, electrically adjustable shocks etc etc. It also cost 4 to 5 times what a Packard Clipper cost. Even at that price it only had wire fuses and a spool of wire to use if one blew out.

Packards served their owners well, and now after 55-60 years on the road some wiring shorts are showing up from junk rolling around in in the trunk. At about 3-5 times the expected service life, I'd say that's damn good.