Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

i'll be honest, I have no idea what this thing looks like installed with all the wiring. I didn't take good pics of any of that back in the day.

my car is a very early car...march...so parts of my pad could have been different then 55 cars in later months for all I know.

I plan to put in a kwikwire 14 circuit universal harness and all of the parts are off my firewall, so installation wont be an issue for me. cutting those spots out could be done by the end user if they didn't want to take the wiring off, so that is an option. the cutouts on the 56 pad would work fine on the 55, but I guess if you are after exact repo, then you wouldn't want them cut out.

the vender actually requested that I tell them what holes I need and don't need in the current pad they make, so this may indicate willingness to accommodate both 55 and 56 once I tell them what we have been talking about here. some of the holes are completely the wrong diameter as well.

as for the brake bracket cut out. I think the best thing would be to remove the two slots from the 56, which they are willing to do, and just cut your own hole for the 55 once you get it in and use your bracket to measure the cutout. basically cause I cannot give them exact measurements since my original pad is pretty garbled in that area.

there are some holes on my original pad that are knocks outs that are still intact. a couple of them are the ones I Xed out on the schematic. I'm not sure if they can do cutouts, but i'll ask.

I see the heater valve bolt holes, but is that large hole to the right of the vent opening, above the top heater valve bolt hole there on all of the pads....what is that large hole for? where I wrote "don't know" on the right side above the heater valve opening....the bigger hole...what is that for?

what size do you think the push pins are that hold the pad on? 5/16"?? I'm planning on modern plastic Christmas tree push pins, but I'm not sure the size.

Thanks for the input HH, if you think of anything else please post.

I believe the 4 large holes are where the heater plenum actually mounts. They are probably 1/2 in the front but IIRC, the holes in the jute padding behind the exposed holes are larger. You might look at your car and see how large the square brackets that extend from and are spot welded to the firewall actually are.

Here is another photo showing the plenum in place and some of the brackets exposed.

Attach file:

---

  (227.80 KB)

I agree with your findings. The vender probably just cut them larger instead of the 1/2" because it probably really won't hurt anything. The brackets are larger the the 1/2", so yes you memory is well and I'm sure the jute had a larger hole and the pad had the smaller on the front. Cutting the jut larger is easy to do if I had them make the holes to match mine at 1/2"

Good findings and discussion! I have lots to talk to the vender about.

here is what I made up for the 55 pad. I'm going to make another one to give the vender an option of a 55/56 pad that has user knock outs where I wrote cut out and not cut out.

since I can't really measure the cut out for the 55 brake pad, I'm going to suggest to them that they leave that up to the customer to overlay the brake bracket and cut as needed.

I also realize now that my horrid attempt at making my own firewall pad was going to be a massive failure as I went back and looked at it. oh well, it gave me something to do at the time I guess.

Attach file:

---

  (171.83 KB)


  (34.23 KB)


  (44.40 KB)


  (48.71 KB)


  (45.88 KB)

If I understand your thinking, removing the bracket to overlay and cut it out will not be the easiest thing to do if working alone. IIRC, it has bolts and nuts holding it so could be difficult to work both sides of dash unless the brake assy or vent tube is removed to be able to reach thru.

I would measure your bracket from the edge of the vent opening to the far edge of the bracket and allow another 1/4". Do the same for height which from the photo looks like the top of bracket may be slightly lower than the height of opening and allow another 1/4". I don't have one to measure but looking at the photos I think if there was a knockout in the pad to extend the right slot two or three inches making it a rectangular opening that would suffice. Even if the opening was larger than the bracket is not a big deal. In senior cars the pads are covered by carpet in that area so any small oversize would not be seen. On non carpeted cars oversize would be a bit more noticeable but with the pedal hanging down and opening being above the dash edge maybe not too bad.

I am also concerned about the round openings for the wiring. I could be wrong and don't have any good 55 firewall photos to confirm but does your car not have the same 2 or 3 fairly large grommeted openings in the firewall as the 56. One is used for the main loom, another is for common accessories and the third is typically for other options. One large hole is shown immediately to the right of the lower grayed out area in your drawing but from the looks of the pad design the other openings are going to be covered by the pad in the grayed areas where you have it marked as not cut out. In the 56 pad the openings are in those two grayed out notched areas.

ERROR FORUM NOT SELECTED!! wth is up with this lately!!

the minute I hit submit the thing wipes out all my long ass text and I have to start over.

short version.

this is for those doing a restoration so all the time saving efforts are not really a huge concern for me.

I have a hole in the floor where the brake booster is missing for now and thus getting to the 3 brake pedal bracket bolts is easy.

I will measure best I can and provide the info to the vender on the pedal location...but even a Packard tech would have to take all of this stuff off first to put a new pad on at the dealership. so I appreciate the ideas on the time saving, but I think the effort would be better served in making a dual 55/56 pad with knockouts the vender could provide.

the area marked "not cut out" is truly not cut out on my car's pad as you can see in the pics. I do remember seeing several firewall knockouts on my car that still had the metal in them though.

also my car is an early 55 car...could they have changed the pad in later months. who knows. my car was a low option car as well.

this doesn't have to be 100% ...they wont be adding the flap at the bottom that is sewed on either. I just know that my effort to make my own pad was not a good one and this is going to be better.

Henry,
Is this part under group 30.131?

Maybe a good idea for the company to get blueprints for this part, especially if they at going to make it to sell.

Thoughts?

the plenum or the pad?? because they already make the pad...and we are in the process of finalizing the plenum forms.

I didn't know the blue prints existed for either of them.

give me a few to look up that group.

Ok,
I misunderstood your post. Thought you wanted the pad.

So would it be under accessories, PA469495, part number 466338?

You can check the Studebaker National Museum, and or the Packad Proving Grounds to see if they have this blue print.

they already make the pad, but it is not perfect.

the heater plenum we have been working on for the last year and they should have a prototype to ship to me next week for fitment. that is why I'm working out all the little things on the pad they already produce. I want it to be accurate as much as possible to my original pad, because these plenums will be going into production for others to buy.

they rebuild their repos off of good originals, so maybe the blueprints would be helpful.