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

Don, if you were responding to Ernie, neither the pilot bushing nor the rear axle ratio is relevant, he was asking about installing a 54 Ultramatic in a 23rd Series car that was already Ultramatic-equipped.

No, I was responding to the general question which implied it was to be done from a manual.

I had this exact same question when looking for mine this past summer. Finding a transmission guy who has heard of an Ultramatic is difficult, let alone someone who can work on it. If you look at the service bulletins on here for those years, as awful lot of them are about the Ultramatic. The one that really stood out in my mind is the one where the company told the dealers that they would no longer replace them without a record of herculean efforts to fix them. As a lemon lawyer, that tells me that the dealers were failing in their repair attempts and replacing them willy nilly at Packard's expense.

Another thing that was important to me was that Packards sales in 48 were about those of Cadillacs in 1948. Packard almost DOUBLED Cadillac sales in 49, the debut year of the Ultramatic, even though Caddies had a more powerful v8 AND an auto. In 50, Packard's sales returned to about the same as Cadillac's. I think this was because of the problems with the Ultras. The price was about the same, the cars were about the same. In 50, why pay for an ornery auto transmission Packard when you could buy a NON ornery transmission Caddy? And who wants an old fashioned manual when you can buy the ease of an auto? That made me run away from a Marshmallow with an auto.


As to 3 speed versus 3 speed overdrive, in 1949 there were no interstates, and few 4 lane highways. If you wanted to go to another city, one took the train, not your car. 3 speeds are fine for city driving, but nowadays, you need the overdrive if you don't live in a major metropolitan area and are going to drive the car rather than trailer it. I trailer my 51 Cranbrook because it has a 3 speed and its just so darn S-L-O-W. The drawback to the overdrive is that you will (sooner or later) have to spend about %500 bucks replacing the overdrive relay and the kickdown switch. Still, that's less than persuading Bubba to work on the ornery automatic. Also, overdrive is a LOT more fun to drive than an automatic. I have a 63 Mercury Meteor with overdrive and will drive it anywhere!


There is a refurbished Ultra on ebay right now for $1600. Even if the overdrive itself malfunctions, you can get it fixed for less than that.

I chose overdrive.

I built a 1939 Ford with a flathead V8 and the original 3-speed transmission. I drive long distances to shows and was pulling my hair out with the car being so slow and the engine running so fast to keep up with traffic. Finally threw up my hands and converted the car to a Tremac 5-speed overdrive transmission. Car is now a please to drive. I hope the R11 in my '49 Packard works as it should!

IMO, one of the perceived problems with the Ultra was the fact automatics were relatively new and untested in 1950. I believe the Hydramatic, Dynaflow, Powerglide and the Studebaker partnered with B-W designed Studebaker Automatic Drive was it and I am not too sure Packard buyers were that inclined to accept new fangled things.

Be that as it may, Hydramatic and Dynaflow were war proven and had GM's vast resources and engineering personnel behind them. Powerglide also had the engineering advantage. Very small Packard designed and built the Ultramatic alone. Perhaps not having the advantage of prior war experience or a transmission partner or not having hundreds of engineers to throw at the project left it a bit of a learning curve but the Ultramatic was still quite an accomplishment and as long as it was maintained worked very well.

The training Packard seemed to provide on the Ultra might have left a bit to be desired. Yes, they did have service schools and yes there was some printed info but I don't think it compared to that offered by GM and then they also had to contend with the old time Packard mechanic who had always done something a certain way. An article in one of the service counselors detailed an Ultramatic that had been in the shop several times for a leak. Turned out the mechanic doing the repairs decided the specified rubber seal looked flimsy to him and elected to use the old leather seal he was familiar with in its place. The leather seal could not stand up to the heat and quickly failed. Another article cautioned about substandard fluid which was apparently making the rounds. Makes one wonder how many early Ultramatic issues were self inflicted with either poor maintenance because info was not followed or substandard repairs because of personnel or insufficient info to non Packard shops.

The 50-54 regular Ultramatics are decent even if they were sluggish but were for the most part competitive in the early years. Certainly competitive with the Dynaflow. Once the other mfgs had some hindsight to learn from and started producing better automatics I think Packard did fall down in not refreshing the product fast enough. They found themselves at a competitive disadvantage and then the hurried effort and not much field testing showed in the GS and TUs.

The GS might have survived the reputation with a bit more use and the lower HP 54 engine but I still kind of wonder why they thought the same basic transmission they started with on a low HP slow turning inline 8 could handle fast V8 engines with almost double the horsepower without protesting such as was expected with the 55-6 models.