Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

What a great feeling. My wife bought me this 54' Packard Cavalier that was sitting in a field since 1976. I replace the motor, brakes, brake lines, radiator, and too many other things to mention to get her up and going. I have worked through low oil pressure problems, overheating and finally brake issues and now she is up and going with great oil pressure, running around 170 F without overheating, transmission works and the brakes will put you through the windshield. Such a great feeling of satisfaction. I am not familiar with driving an ultramatic. I have never seen a transmission that did not have a drive but just a Low and a High. What is proper technique for operating this? Can I shift from H to L on the fly? Curious as to any pointers you can give. I know obviously L to go up hills and H for highway driving but other than that any advice?

Congratulations on seeing a light thru the tunnel.

On driving with the Ultra, since it appears you have the conventional Ultra and not the gear start (no small dot on the quadrant to the left of H?) the procedure was to do everything in H. As you have found, that provides smooth but leisurely acceleration.

Many people didn't like the slow take off from stop lights so got in the habit of starting in low and shifting to high. The transmission was not designed for this and because there is no synchronization between low band release and high range clutch plate lockup the transmission could bog down or engine race while the two things happened in the trans. Not good for life expectancy to clutch and bands.

Packard did realize people were doing this and made some attempts to alleviate the issue. Yours being a 54 may have the improved timing kit installed which helped a bit but if you do the manual shift it is still a good idea to get in a habit of taking off in low and when the car gets going, letting off the gas while you shift to high and let the transmission do its thing with no power applied and then proceeding in high.

Once the trans reaches approx 20-40 mph depending on throttle position it will go into direct drive. Below approx 50 you can force a downshift into converter by flooring the accelerator. Above 50 or so it will stay in direct drive so don't be alarmed if you try to pass a car, floor the accelerator, and the trans does not want to shift down as modern cars do. As far as shifting from H to L it is not a good idea to do this above a moderate speed. The same thing with no sync in the trans plus, since there is only the two gear ratios, a huge added strain as it tries to get everything slowed and rotating at the same speed . Packard suggested low for steep inclines and if you needed to rock the car to free from mud or sand it was permissible to shift from L to H back and forth to rock the car -- but that was at no to low speed. Packard suggested not using low or dropping into low at anything over approx 25 mph.

The gear start introduced toward the end of 54 production did the low to high to direct automatically but before that it was one speed plus direct drive.

For normal driving, just consider "H" to be the equivalent of "D". And as HH56 warns, avoid "on the fly" shifts from L to H, most especially under any significant throttle load.

unlike my 56, my 54 will not downshift to converter when I press the gas pedal to the floor below 50mph. Is there some adjustment I need to make? The trans is silky smooth otherwise.

now that I have my car driving too (hey, congrats by the way, sounds like you had a huge job to get your car going! Good job!) I have found my transmission likes to shift itself up to high around 30-40mph. The other thing I've noticed is that it will stay in high as you coast to a stop sign or whatever, only downshifting as it were as you hit the brakes. You have power brakes so not as big of a deal but I have manuals and it means a bit more brake dragging. I haven't figured out if there is a way to deal with this yet.

Ross is the expert but I would suggest checking throttle linkage adjustment on both. That is what controls throttle pressure which is the main command of when it goes in and drops out of DD. Even if the linkage needs a touch it should reliably drop out of DD into high range converter at approx 11 mph per Packard. Several have had dirty or sticking governors which prevented the drop out until the car was all but stopped which makes it hard to keep the engine from stalling .

Thanks for that info Howard, my car does the downshift thing at around 10mph or so so I guess I'm set up OK. I had tried to set all the linkages as per the service manual when I reassembled the car but I haven't memorized all the service counselors like you have somehow. So, as always, I appreciate the info!