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I believe it works the same way the stick shift does. The operator lever when pulled back moves the long moving inner rod down against the spring. I believe the shift tube has a slot in it and the detent lever has a pin which fits thru the slot in the shift tube and captures the moving rod by the pin passing thru a hole in the end of the rod.

As the rod moves down it moves the detent lever down 1/4" or so along the splines and away from the detent plate so the small pin on the end of the detent lever can clear some interference in the plate. Once the operator lever is pulled so rod can move down it pushes the detent kever along the splines and by moving the operator lever up or down and pin clear, it will move the detent lever out of park or reverse position. The linkage lever at the very bottom is clamped to the splines too so it will move with the shift tube but I believe there should be a space large enough for the detent lever to move down on the splines and clear the plate.

The upper detent plate is not fastened to the shift tube but rather is attached to the steering column tube and is fixed by a U clamp. It just provides a bearing for the shift tube passing thru it. Not knowing exactly what position the operator lever is in, possibly It could be that the detent plate is clamped too far down or it could be the linkage lever is too far up. Either would lessen the clearance and prevent the detent lever from moving away from the plate.

I did not look to see what Packard called the various pieces so here is an illustration labeled with what I am calling the parts in the narrative.

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Howard, I was wondering the same thing about whether there was a slot but can't tell without taking it apart. If I have to go that route, it will be on my next visit when it's warmer!

Anyway the rigidly-clamped piece (detent plate?) is in the group called BRACKET ASSEMBLY-SELECTOR LOCK in the parts book but I was taking as being only limit stops for the lever when it is apparently much more than that. Tomorrow I'll loosen its clamps to see if there is something obvious and may drive out the pin too.

If necessary, I'll pull out the column from the parts car as the dash has been removed and the column not attached except at the gearbox so will be easier and will allow me to see what I am looking for.

The smaller rods that the drawing shows running parallel to the column - are they in the center of it? I can see clear through now that the horn wire is out so not sure where to look for these and am trying to avoid removing the whole column just yet unless absolutely necessary.

Incidentally, I noticed today that the odometer reads 48,673 miles and I've owned it for close to 45 years and know it didn't go around in that time. There was also virtually no wear on the engine before it was rebuilt either which leads me to believe it might be original but poorly maintained miles. Will probably be able to tell better once the transmission is torn apart.

Speaking of transmission, the Ultramatic in it was working well when it was a driver but I have a Gearstart that I want to rebuild and use but in the steering column issues above and looking at the parts book, I am surprised by how much is different between the two! I thought it would be an easy matter of changing the indicator but that's not the case.

The steering shaft and the shift section are parallel but entirely separate pieces. The horn wire goes thru the hollow steering shaft and clamp under the dash and end of steering box provides the support for the entire steering column. Inside the car the steering column and shift tube are both covered by the oval shaped shroud but once past the lower dashl they turn into separate tubes. The top of the shroud which is fastened to the steering column provides the upper support for the shift tube but once in the engine compt the detent plate and the piece at the very bottom clamped to the steering column provide the lower support for the shift tube.

The moving rod fits inside the hollow shift tube. You cannot see it directly from either end without taking things apart. The end of the operator lever fits inside an assembly on the upper end of the rod, there are some rubber anti vibration pieces to keep the rod from hitting the inside of shift tube and the lower end of the rod has the hole the pin in the detent lever fits into as it passes thru the slot in the tube.

There is quite a bit of difference in transmissions too. If you were going to do the gearstart I would recommend you get in touch with Big Kev or Ross and pick their brains about adapting the 56 TU to the 54 engine as Kev is doing with his car.

The early gearstart had such limited field testing so various issues came about. There are some parts differences but It was almost identical to the 55 TU in valving and operation but we know those had their share of issues -- although many of those were due to the high HP engines. By 56 the bugs and valving had mostly been worked out. If you do that adapting of the 56 case and guts to the 54 bell housing, IMO you would be happier with the final product.

Thank you, Howard, for all the good information. The last time I took apart a Packard steering column was on a 1940 110 and there's a big difference between that and the 1954's!

On the Gearstart, I have been following BigKev's blog with interest and, in fact, have read and enjoyed the whole thing to date. If it come to using an original Gearstart over a Twin-Ultramatic conversion, I would have it rebuilt professionally.

Made another try to free up the shifter without total disassembly but no luck so far. I couldn't get the pin of the sliding piece to budge, partially because the car is rather high up on stands but I did put more PB Blaster into the oil hole, and also tilted up the upper column bit where the shift lever goes and added quite a bit there so we'll see if any of it can work its way down into the mechanism. It's going to have to come out and apart anyway but right now I just want to try to free it up as it is.

After that I moved over to the parts car which is 99% complete and missing only the radiator and air cleaner although many parts are off as I started the disassembly years ago. It was a mess inside so I scraped off as much as I could and, while I've not yet done the entire front floor and the seat frame is still installed, I see no signs of rust at all. Although both have good bodies, the one on the running car has had body work while the parts car has not, and the parts car also has power windows that I want to have so ultimately this body will go onto the running chassis.

For those who follow such things, both of these cars have matching body and vehicle numbers with the parts car being a higher number than the other.

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Today I got the front seat of the parts car nearly out other than the front/back actuator roll pin. I moved it a little but don't really have any good drift pins so will try again tomorrow. Broke off only one of the seat hold-down bolts and rounded the head of another but all in all they weren't too bad to remove and I am so pleased that Packard was thoughtful enough to supply some nice handles for making it easy to get my old body back up from the floor!

I completed my apprenticeship at a place called Ball, Screws & Actuators so the types of ball-screws used on the power seat will be no problem to repair as needed. Looking at them in the car, though, it appears that the front/back ball nut is in upside down making any servicing in-place impossible but perhaps it needs to be that way for clearance. Didn't think of that until I had closed up for the night and walked the block back where I'm staying.

While getting ready to leave, I noticed a dent that I had forgotten about, which happened ten years ago while moving where it was hit with the corner of one of the box trucks that I had rented. On this tight of a bend, it won't be easy to fix either.

I also put up two up 11,200 lumen LED light fixtures in the shop, one over each workbench, so now those areas at least are like daylight. Also had someone come out to give a quote on insulation but at $13k, it won't happen any time soon and tomorrow another place is coming out to give me ideas about heating!

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I don't know if 54 seats are any stronger than 56 Caribbean seats but the front support holding the pin and motor was so weak and angle so bad on the 56 that I couldn't drive that pin out without damage to the support. Made a tool similar to what the factory suggested and used a modified C clamp to push the tool and pin out rather than trying to drive it.

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That would do the trick nicely but unfortunately no way to fabricate anything until I get regular power other than a 50' extension cord! It's probably the exact same mechanism as the 1956 and the problem that this tool would solve is the fact that there is really nothing to hit against. I beefed it up a little by clamping a Vise-Grip across both sides but using only a rod of cold rolled steel as a drift is more conducive to hitting my hand with the hammer than it is removing the pin so clearly I'll have to somehow make a tool something like yours.