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Wow, what a lot of answers.

Currently, the red wire across the block is 8 gauge. Any danger of it melting?

I need some time to digest this. If anyone feels like a diagram or two, preferably with pictures, I'd sure appreciate it.

We assume this car is negative ground ? and this is a 12 volt car?

Didn't see the year mentioned.

I have a 54 Cavalier which is 6 volt positive ground. my add on A/C has its own small alternator for negative ground 12 volt.

Using an Optima 6 volt battery, I have a small 12 volt battery on the battery shelf for the A/C.

All modifications are reversible.

Jim

When I rewired my 38 (I'm running a one wire 6V alternator)I went from the alt to a 30 amp fuse and then to the ammeter,normal wiring thereafter.

U should not need a diagram..

SEE PAge 1, post #9 first paragraph by HH56. He explains a simple ez way to do it using the OEM PAckard existing wires.

I'll recap:

Before u started there was a generator. The generator had a rather heavy brown wire running from generator to voltage regulator. That particular brown wire is what i believe HH56 is refering to as the "armature lead".

Connect THAT OEM BROWN wire to alternator. Connect other end of the same oem brown wire to OEM red wire that orignaly connectd to the voltage regulator on the "B" tab of the old OEM regulator. That simple.

Edit: there should be NO wores connected to the old voltage regulator when u are thru.

HH56's advice should only take about 15 minutes at the max to accomplish. It utilizes existing wires in their original general location.

The pic is of my 56 Executive. Someone else can confirm or refute whether or not a Patrician is the same.

That black box is the voltage regulator. It is near the radiator. There are 3 wires that run to the voltage regulator. A blue, heavy brown and a heavy red wire. They are clear to see in the pic. The heavy brown is centre post of regulator. The heavy red is right most post of regulator. Blue wire is left post of regulator.

REmove red wire from regulator. Remove brown wire from regulator. Now that u have two wires dangling in air just connect those two wires together with a fuse between them.
(see HH56's post directly after this one).

Follow the hevy brown wire down thru the taped wiring loom about 18" to the area where the original generator mounted. There u should find the end of the heavy brown wire. Connect that end of th e heavy brown wire to the new alternator. THat should do it.

Edit: to place fuse between brown and red wire. See HH56's post below.

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Since Phils38cpe has done it with no problems, I'm thinking if you use the original wires, a 35 or 40 amp fuse or non automatic reset circuit breaker as the connection between the red and brown wires would be a good idea just because of the #10 wire size. Again, it's a question of what would be damaged more if something did happen. IMO, A burned loom would be much worse to deal with than the possibility of a suddenly unloaded alternator destroying itself if the fuse did blow. Alternators are inexpensive compared to looms and that possible ancillary damage.

The normal current should never get anywhere near that high but in the extreme case because the alternators regulator could allow it, I'd feel more comfortable if it were my car.

Thanks HH56. I edited my post with picture above to indicate use of a fuse.

Someone asked what year; the car is a 56 Patrician which usually is visible in the little picture....

Thank you so much for clarifying the wiring. Like a lot of things, it's actually fairly simple once you get it, but before that point amazingly complex.

It's not my week. The car came home from the garage with a weekend pass during which time the a carb float went wild and the starter burned out. The starter is fixed and back in, but we are waing on the carb kit. Worse, I have only my winter car (nice, but hardly a Packard [particularly over railroad tracks....])

Geneva is this weekend......maybe I should have it trucked out.....

ok. So what's the verdict???? How did u wire it???? How well does it work????? does the engine have to be revved real high before it starts to charge???? What do ammeter readings look like????