Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Ernie: English is such a wonderful language, is the adjective ‘old’ modifying the noun ‘car’ or the noun ‘dude’?

As for the genealogy . . . My grandfather, along with his lodge mates, commissioned a publication (circa 1920) to document the various ‘family trees’ of the lodge members. The entries for my grandfather and James & William (of the motor car company fame) read eerily the same. Their ancestors immigrated in the same time frame, and had the same debarkation and destination points as those identified for my grandfather. I just don’t remember if Samuel was a common starting point. The only difference that I can tell is my branch of the Packard clan stayed close to what is now Massachusetts, while others went west (I guess just about every place is west of MA, sorry to those in ME, NH, and VT). While I now live in Arizona I still consider myself as part of the Massachusetts clan. I remain skeptical as to being a direct relative, and rest assured, if I am related, I don’t get a family discount. By the way many versions of the family crest do not feature the retched bird.

I know from the native population perspective those damn Packards came ‘without papers’.


Gar: The motion that Ernie is suggesting you look for is transient, meaning if the spring needs more preload the lost motion only occurs until an adequate amount of spring force is achieved. The lost motion is only at the very beginning of steering wheel rotation. Most of these systems are designed such that when the steering wheel is controlling the motion one joint will be ‘hard’ (meaning the spring is not in the load path), and the wheel will be in motion as soon as the linkage moves. On the other side the joint is ‘soft’ (meaning the spring is in the load path) and the wheel motion will be delayed until the spring force can overcome the friction between the ground and the tire. Ernie is right, finding that motion on a lift will be difficult.

On to the steering box: The straight-ahead position of a steering box typically wears a bit more than anywhere else (that’s small area on the worm and sector gears when the car is traveling straight-ahead). Assuming the ’28 steering box is adjustable, the straight-ahead position is typically adjusted for the minimum ‘slop’, but as the wear increases this adjustment may create a bind at full lock (the position where there is minimum, or no wear). I would jack the car up and slowly rotate the steering wheel lock to lock trying to feel if there is gear binding at the limits of travel. If you have good straight ahead feel and binding at full lock, you might want to adjust and put a little ‘slop’ at straight-ahead, (likely the sector gear mesh adjustment) and recheck the end points. My bet is you’ll want the least amount of play straight-ahead, and if the steering wheel needs a bit of persuasion to leave the full lock position . . . so be it (that's the way I have Brand X adjusted). Steering boxes that have multiple adjustments require an iterative process, because one adjustment can affect the other. Now the question is whether the ’28 Packard steering box has service adjustments s for bearing clearance and selector gear mesh. In the ’29 service materials (available on this site) on page 231 there is a photo of the steering box, and on page 232 there is an adjustment procedure, step 1 looks like the worm bearing adjustment, step 2 looks like the sector bearing adjustment, while step 3 looks like the sector gear engagement adjustment. The photo on page 231 does not show the eccentric bushing called-out in step 3 of the procedure.

So are the ’28 & ’29 steering boxes ‘about the same’?

dp

DP, they steering assembly appears to be very similar and your comments/suggestions are right on.

One of the local old-time car restorers in my area (relatively speaking), agrees that the steering gear, bearing, washers might need adjustment and would be a good 1st step.

He also suggested that I look at the king-pin assembly as a second area to check as the trouble appeared to go away for a while. He is thinking that most likely the issue is with both areas now. He thought was that the king pins needed to be adjusted (worn shim/washer) and the severe shimmy caused the steering gear misalignment, which is causing more dramatic shimmy.

Is there any documentation on the removal/adjustment of king pins?

Thanks again
Gar

Gar;

In the ’29 service manual page 221, there is a ‘cut-away’ of the front suspension and steering knuckle. That graphic suggests the Packard ‘Steering Knuckle Pin’ features ball bearings that require some type of shimming. The adjustment procedure is on page 222, procedure S119. The material call-out mentions shims of 0.005” or 0.025” thickness. All of this suggests either a minimum vertical motion or bearing pre-load is being set. I’m significantly out of my league with that design . . . I’m strictly from reamed Bushingville, with a simple thrust bearing to support the weight of the car.

The note in S119, step #5 suggests a check should be made to ensure the bearings have not been pinched with excessive preload, therefore if you use the procedure to check the bushing design a near zero ‘looseness’ would be expected. The contents of Technical Letter 1840 (referenced in S119) may contain the missing pieces, but I’ve been unsuccessful finding that document. Assuming this site has a copy, I think I need HH56’s site navigation skills.

Update: I finally found TL 1840. I'll look it over for some insight on the adjustment "do's and don'ts".

Seems the bearings were being ‘pinched’ in the field by not shimming correctly (still no insight on the correct procedure). The fix was a different plug, and two Belleville washers to replace the stack of shims. Seems the new plug could be made locally by machining the original design. All of that detail tells me the bearings were designed for a preload (zero slop), but the field exceeded the desired pre-load while maintaining the cars.

Gar, download a copy of Technical Letter 1840 and measure your cap against the 13/32 dimension called-out in the letter. If it’s 3/16 longer, then you have the original design. Still no idea of the Belleville geometry.


dp

David, can you tell me where(how) you found TL1840? I am not finding that letter.

Thanks,
Gar

Gar

Advanced Search with "Technical Letters" as Keywords, and only the technical/service sections checked.

A list will appear . . . at the bottom is "Show All Results" . . . click that choice

At the bottom of the next list is "Technical Letters" . . . click that choice

A listing of TLs will be displayed . . . scroll until 1840 . . . click that choice

This link might work:
packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/TechLetters/TechLetter-1840.pdf

dp

Thanks for giving me the link to the doc.

I did check the steering gear and connections and they are all consistently tight but still movable. What I did find was a service letter vol-2 no-17 that discusses a front spring trunnion and bracket.

There are four heavy coil springs inside the trunnion.I did notice that the springs have some play in them and are not snug on the top of the trunnion.

Should these springs be tight on the top and the bottom of the trunnion?

Please see attached picture...


I may try to place some wood shimms inside the trunnion to close gap and see if that reduces the shimmy.

Gar

Attach file:

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Trunnion.pdf Size: 126.79 KB; Hits: 76

I wanted to close the loop on this thread.

After performing all of the suggestions above and a couple of Hail Marys, I switched out the TRUNION springs (set of four) and all of the steering shimmy issues went away. The car steers firmer and has a much better road feel even it 45MPH (max speed that I drive it at).

The old springs were between 1/16" to 1/8" more compressed(shorter) than the new springs.

Car now steers better. Thanks for all of the suggestions!

GAR

I am still becoming a "car guy" and am an authority on absolutely nothing, but I have been told by a guy that has restored more of these cars than all of us put together that the first issue to address (beyond the obvious worn out parts), is to make sure it has 2 degrees of caster. My car is still a rolling frame, so I don't know if it will shimmy or not, but I tend to believe my "guru".