Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

The six-connector relay failed me at a car cruise and supplied power to the push-button motor to position it toward reverse. I could start the car, but could not shift gears.
After much head-scratching and going over wiring diagrams in my mind, I pulled the relay and opened it up. The one standup with a contact point on it had gotten so hot that it laid down and contacted the standup that supplied power when the relay closed. It ran the motor past the reverse detent and locked it up. ACOlds stuck with me and drove home to get jack stands and stayed with me till friend Al showed up at 1:30 AM to flatbed me home. It's nice to have friend, even better to have Packard friends! As the car was stuck in reverse when we unloaded it at the house I was able to back it into the garage. This all happened the Thursday before the HBJ tour in New Jersey. I drove my Honda van to the HBJ tour and good friends Dave Czirr and Ole Book allowed me to ride along with them. I enjoyed the tour immensely thanks to two very good Packard friends.
Back home I knew what was involved to pull the PB motor and finally put jackstands front and back and crawled under Best Other. I dropped the driveshaft and placed a scissorjack under the tranny. After supporting the tranny with the scissorjack I dropped the rear motor mount. The shop manual states that you have to drop the tailshaft to enable you to jack the trans to the passenger side giving enough clearance to pull the PB motor off the selector shaft. Friend Dave Czirr told me that he was able to pull the PB motor without removing the tail shaft. It was worth a try. It worked - although it is a very tight squeeze. What did I say about Packard friends?
I also checked the leather ring seal? and it seemed to be in good shape. Seal is group 3.577882 (6470206).
Seal is .385 wide
Seal is .100 thick
Seal is 3 3/8 inches long
I've attached some pics of the install.

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I'm surprised that the circuit breaker allowed anything to get so hot. Not sure why the power unit on the side of trans had to be removed. If a spare relay had been available wouldn't that have corrected the problem????

Keith brings up the very point I was thinking. If the CB allowed things get so hot as to melt, it must be way over capacity or Packard erred in using the self reset type.

EDIT: After rethinking my first comment, based on the story of my cars SF experiences with sticking in park position, anything less or non resetting would probably have had lots more complaints.

Randy had previously mentioned this incident to me, privately. From what I gather, the motor over-travelled, first, and the lock-up resulted in excessive current draw; because the breaker kept resetting, the relay eventually had a meltdown.

I like the idea of a self-resetting breaker for transient events, but if excessive current draw is what cause the meltdown, then perhaps some sort of thermal fuse should be used, in addition to the OE circuit breaker.

GM used a three-terminal thermal limiter on their on AC systems back in the 1970s that would disable the compressor clutch if refrigerant ran low to prevent burning up the compressor. A heat-sensing switch on the back of the compressor switch provided current to a heater inside of the limiter to blow an integral thermal fuse, but it was a one-shot device. This was prior to the advent of pressure-sensing switches.

A fuse in addition to the circuit breaker would be a great idea. IIRC the CB is 30 amp???? Then maybe a 40 amp fuse added to the circuit would be appropos.

But then again, what caused the PB motor to overrun??? Check the push button BUTTON POD near the steering wheel to determine if any of the spring contacts have broken off and hanged up shorting or cross circuiting the PB selector circuit.

Wondering if anyone knows anything about the Edsel unit. I have read they used the same Autolite assembly only configured for their car --- with essentially the same electrical and mechanicals though. Also read the units were somewhat problematic so just wondering if they had problems with same things we experience or a whole new set. If still the same, would have thought bugs would have been worked out by then.

I was told the Edsel unit was completely new tooling and different than Packard.
Keith, go back and read my entry again. The relay was energized, not by the pushbuttons, but by a relay failure, so the current was being supplied every time the CB reset itself.
The CB rating is 20 amp. I verified that thru several sources. The parts book does not list the value of THAT CB, but it does list 40 Amp for the Power Window CB. I guess that was designed for the idiot who would try to put all four windows up at once. I have noted in my parts book that the PB requires a 20 amp breaker.

Raddy, glad you were able to confirm my finding that yuu can remove the motor unit without removing the tailshaft.

HH, I've had the opportunity to examine the Edsel unit. Physically very different than the Packard unit, though still made by AutoLite. I doubt there was any common tooling. It's very much smaller and more compact. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me at the time.

I was told the Edsel unit was completely new tooling and different than Packard.

I found a schematic of the Teletouch & it does appears to be different--at least in some respects. Am sure O_D is right and nothing interchanges but still an interesting device.

Operation is very similar in principle but appears to be a bit more complicated. They seem to have two sector sections but not the best quality print so haven't figured out what the second one is doing yet. Am curious enough to try and redraw it. It appears to have some double "fingers" or whatever they called their contacts connected together. We have 8 wires & fingers and they have 13 for the same number of detents. Motor relay is slightly different & has an extra contact doing something.

Reading a few Edsel comments, IMHO Packard may have thought things out better. Ours do not have the ability to bypass the pressure switch at speed whereas theirs uses an inhibitor switch & only protects P and R. If you press their neutral first, hydraulic pressure to the switch and thus the safety feature is bypassed and you can activate any button. Some mentions of people looking for a horn button and hitting the sequence which resulted in selecting park or reverse gear at speed. There was also a problem of their actuator location near exhaust pipe. If their shift motor got too hot, it would not go into park. Ours just wasn't strong enough to come out.

You would think Edsel would have learned and not had as many problems with Packard experience to guide them. Apparently enough problems that it was a one year deal.

The pressure switch that allows current for PNR has gone out on me causing problems. I stopped in a friends driveway, pushed P and pulled the emergency brake on, but did not shut off the engine as I was leaving immediately. I got out and walked toward the rear of the car to remove something from the trunk that I had brought him. The switch had gone south sometime during the drive and the tranny did not shift into Park, but was still in H. As I walked back the car started to move as it was still in gear and headed into his garage. I grabbed the rear bumper and hollered for him to jump in and hit the brake. He did and saved the day I replaced the switch the following day. I was going to wire a switch to complete the circuit when the switch goes south, but thought I might throw it and forget to throw it back, so I left it alone.

I forgot to mention it, but that switch failed when I was testing the new unit. It failed at an opportune time as the car was still up on jackstands, but it took me an hour to find a new one in my parts stash ^&*%$#@(-).