Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Jack. U do NOT need a longer shaft. The gear can be pushed up the shaft 3/8 to 7/16 inch. About 3/32" will have to be cut from the top of the locator dowel or the locator dowl bored out a little bigger to allow room for the wobble joint sleeve to drop down into the dowel a little bit.

Mock it up with a gear pushed up onto the shaft and u'll see well it works. PLENTY of room for this movement at the distributor end too. I did it 8 years ago and it ran fine.

I assume u eleminated the vacuum pump??? I'm thinking there is a way to keep the vac pump AND have a lower bushing to.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hesitated to lessen the depth of engagement of the intermediate shaft. I have seen many of them wear severly from normal loading. Seems like it would wear more. However, I will mock it up and take a look.

FWIW, seems no problem to duplicate the slots in the thin OEM mid-plate in an 1/2" thick piece and just make a longer vacuum pump driveshaft. What else would be required?

thnx, jv.

Look close at the blade end (distributor end) of the intermediate shaft. The wear is about 5/8 inch from top of blade leaving plenty of room to allow for the drop of the shaft when pressing the gear higher at the other end. The heavy wear at the blade end of the shaft i am confident is due to the extra load of the vac pump.

On a factory set up, if i remeber rite, there is only 3/8 inch clearence between bottom of vac pump and bottom of oil pan. Maybe mill 1/16 inch from the top of the oil pump-to-block mounting flange and ever so slightly dent the bottom of the pan to gain clearence. Mock it up to see.


Denting the bottom of the pan is risky business due to the long draw die process in stamping it. The metal gets VERY thin in unpredictable areas.