Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Hi Everybody - new member, first post :)

I've had a really good look through the forum archives and am needing a spot of advice.
I'm looking at swapping out an aircon dashboard, where the top padding is all toasted and broken up, and all the wiring pretty bad (ex desert car) with a low mileage nice and tidy non AC dash.
I'm vaguely aware that the heater 'plumbing' and doodads pipe the heated air through the aircon areas, if so, will the heater still work with a non ac dash?
I could keep the aircon one in, and just swap over the padded tops and maybe some wiring (awkward!), but I'd lose the little modern aire trapdoor thingies in the top of the dash padding which I find quite groovy even thought they're colour coded.
I've no interest in running the AC as such (I live in New Zealand!)and a heater is way more important than ac.
Point me in the right direction here please...
Cheers
Muir

G'day Muir,
to PackardInfo, always good to have another antipodean on board. Sorry can't help with your query but I'm sure the knowledgeable and experienced V8 guys will be along shortly to help out. But I have a request of you! Could you include your Packard in the Packard Owner's Registry here on PackardInfo? BTW, hope to make it to the land of the long white cloud for South Pacific Packards Rally in 2014.

Hiya, thanks for the welcome
Yep, had a meander around the owners registry and added my car - good plan.

Thanks for the long white cloud reminder - economy hasn't been too crash hot over here lately (1/9th of New Zealanders now live in Australia) so good to get reminders about living in a great country!

My question sounds a bit vague but I'm aware that the A/C cars appear to have changed the firewall location of lots of things, and if it starts looking too different for the controls I'll just keep the current A/C dash...
A rust hole you know its there: see it: cut it out: weld a plate in.
The "where and why is this different" and "this just isn't going to fit" scenarios are the time consumers...
Cheers

Muir,
That was quick! for including your '56 Patrician Touring Sedan in the Registry.

Welcome to a pleasant little website.

The dashes are the same between air and non air cars with some exceptions which would be easy to take care of while you had them out on the bench. These would center around the lengths of some of the control cables, and the little plastic labels for the ventilation controls which are not too hard to move from one to another. I believe all of the AC wiring is in its own harness that you may deal with as you will.

Just for reference, here is the manual telling dealers how to field install the AC unit. You can reverse engineer so to speak to see what all is involved or different.https://www.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/55-56ACInstall.pdf

While there were some changes in the defroster air flow setup vs non AC cars that you are stuck with, if you do remove the AC & wanted you could fabricate a smaller enclosure out of sheetmetal or perhaps modify an original plenum setup if you have one to accommodate what is now there. With dash out it would be easy to get rid of the huge evaporator box & would make future under dash servicing easier.

AC was such a rare option and if you have the top vents, more the better. How much of the unit is present or would it take to make operational?

Stretching my memory here, but didn't the A/C cars also have a different (shallower) glove box than the non-A/C cars?

They did. AC box is shallower by slightly over an inch.

My if possible, I would leave the A/C in car. It would match the build sheet, and as you already pointed out has those neat dash pods! It also might be a selling point at some time down the road.

But it is your car, so do what works for you.

As HH56 asked the ac is all there, all complete, so maybe it would be the better idea to leave it all in there, just not have it operative, and just have a look at what to do about the dash pads.

Operationally I think it'd be not worth time/effort/money, not at the moment anyway

Had a squizz at some ebay past sales on packard aircon bits - crikey the vents aren't exactly bargains...

how does one find out about these build sheets?

all good my end

PS This site is phenomenal! It's like the complete cornucopia of everything Packard, awesome effort!