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Topic: Shout Out to Jason at AER

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Pat and Melanie Westerkamp

Re: Shout Out to Jason at AER

#11

Home away from home

Quote:

HH56 wrote:
The prewar linkage was apparently prone to many issues and if you go thru the service letters several suggestions and a couple of retrofit components are mentioned. Bushings at various rod ends in particular were a source of problems. Original rubber encased bushings on the shift rods were replaced with solid steel because of the rubber deteriorating and causing lock up issues. As to the garden hose, either noise or action is a possibility. The spring loaded rod going down the center of the shift tube that moves the tongue which selects a shift lever has rubber antivibration bushings in about 3 places. It is possible one or more of the bushings has deteriorated and the rod is vibrating or buzzing inside the shift tube. The garden hose could just be there to muffle the sound.

Hey HH56 i wish i had your confidence and knowledge on this LOL.....you mention all the rubber bushings and steel replacements and retrofit parts, are the aftermarket people carrying anything to go completely through the column shift???? guess ill start boning up and reading tons on this before i tear into that.

Posted on: 2019/11/24 9:54

Pat and Melanie Westerkamp

1941 Packard 110 Club Coupe Deluxe

HH56

Re: Shout Out to Jason at AER

#12

Forum Ambassador

To the best of my knowledge the linkage bushings have never been repro'd. I believe there are 8 per car but they are not all the same bushing and some also differ between conventional body linkage and Clipper type linkage. They are also non stock sizes and have a rounded shape at the circumference to allow for a slight twisting movement. Ordinary modern bushings from industrial supply places will not work for the linkage ends.

When the changeover from the rubber isolated to all steel bushings was first suggested in service letters of the 41-2 period Packard issued a kit of the involved pieces. After the war they made different service kits of bushings for prewar and the later models so when linkage wear problems became an issue a dealer could again change all the bushings prone to having the most wear.

I do not believe any of the complete kits are still available but some of the individual bushings are. Unless something has changed in the last couple of years, todays problem is no one vendor has all the bushings that are used in the complete linkage and there are some bushings that appear to be NLA.

Adding to the bushing problem is the ends of the rods that fit into the bushings are also prone to wear so problems can be on either or both places. Some who have taken their linkage apart found so much wear at the rod ends that instead of a snug round end fitting inside a bushing it was a half round surface with a lot of movement. The worn rods had to be welded to restore the diameter and then resized for the bushing. The intermediate pieces that hold the bushings and change direction of the linkage rods can also have wear problems in their shafts which result in lost motion.

Posted on: 2019/11/24 10:42

Howard