Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

I will start this off by saying that I did have the 56 Patrician running last year. I did get all the windows to go up and down. I was able to actuate the door locks via the button on the underside of the dash. I was able to manipulate the suspension via the solenoids, the motor, and the leveling switch as of last week.

Now my issue:

Yesterday I got to the point of wanting to test some of the parts I installed on the car and got connected. I attached the negative cable to the battery and turned the key to on and nothing. No giant click from under the hood, no interior lights, nothing. I start probing around with a test light and I see I have no power to the fuse box, the battery terminal on the ignition switch, or the cigar lighter. The windows and door locks are not working. I probe in the engine bay and I see I have power at the red wire coming off of the voltage regulator and power at the circuit breaker connected to the power window/seat/lock relays on the firewall. but nothing under the dash was showing power.

Now Things I have done in the past week was connected the license plate lights, tail lights, reverse lights, fuel tank sending unit, front parking lights, and headlights. The suspension, windows, and door locks were all wired up prior to this weekend and did work.

I will also point out the dash lights are LED and I am running a headlight relay harness that has the signal/switch wire to the relays from the junction block on the passenger fender. One relay is for high beams, the other is for low. The relays are getting their power from the red wire terminal on the voltage regulator.

I kept probing looking for issues when all of a sudden I saw I was finally getting power to the back side of the ignition switch. I tried turning the key to on and I lost power again. This happened a couple more times until I was able to get power to the ignition switch and it stayed on. With the key in the on position and the headlight switch in the parking light position the dash lights illuminated, and both turn signal indicators on the dash. tail lights worked, reverse lights worked, and license plate lights worked, brake lights work. left front parking light turned on and off with the headlight switch, the right did not. No Idea why the passengers did not work, the orange wires going to and front were showing power, and the bulb socket was showing it was getting power, I even used a jumper wire from the housing to a good ground and the light still wouldnt illuminate. the bulb ohmed out good, so I dont know why that wouldnt work, any ideas?

The head lights would not work in low beams, but a press of the high beam switch and both turned on. I thought my new high beam switch was bad but after checking with a multi meter I saw I had the switch wired wrong. So I unplugged the battery, swapped some wires around, plug the battery back in. With the key off I pulled the headlight switch all the way out, lights came on, hit the high beam switch and then lost power to everything again and could not get power back again. Again, this is no power to the back of the switch, but power at the red wire on the voltage regulator.

What can cause this no power to the dash intermittently? One thing I noticed is when nothing is working, I pull the headlight switch to either park or headlight position and any good ground is causing my test light to light up.

Is this what a short was? if so, I didnt see any smoke and everything I touched didnt seam to get hot. I didnt smell anything either. Well that may not actually be true, I did smell what I thought was fireworks since the neighborhood was firing off fireworks for an hour at that point. But again no smoke.

What would cause this power issue? both indicators being on the dash but no the tail lights? and the passenger parking light not working?

Could be so many things but if the car has been sitting I would check battery and cables first. Some of the symptoms are classic in pointing to those areas. Take both battery cables off and clean both the terminal inside surface and battery post until the contact areas are shiny. If there are signs of green corrosion on a terminal, that could have "grown" and worked down the wire itself to the point a cable needs replacing. The battery itself could also be at issue if a cell has died and the battery can no longer sustain a constant normal current flow. In that situation the battery can test just fine with a voltage meter because it has almost no load and meter is reading what is called a surface voltage. As soon as any load is on the battery the voltage drops to a low value and provide the symptoms you are experiencing.

Other issues Packards are prone to experiencing are grounds failing at the various lights or components that are housed in or current has to flow thru pot metal. Parking and tail lights are particularly prone to corrosion or rust growing between sheet metal and housing mounting screws causing the ground issues. The headlight switch has a circuit breaker that can also lose current carrying capacity. A typical symptom there is lights work for a few minutes then go off for a few seconds and come back on. Cycle repeats. A direct short will cause the breaker to turn the light or faulty item off almost immediately, come back on a few seconds later only to go off again. Tha rapid on/off continues until the switch is turned off, a wire burns thru, or breaker fails.

The 55-6 ignition switch is a known failure item resulting in intermittent no connections. The relatively small starter contact inside when coupled with the large solenoid on senior models is known to overheat or arc making the switch stick or feel rough in moving to the various positions. If the switch sticks with just a minimal amount of contact surfaces touching the problem intensifies to the point the switch fails.

HF sells battery load testers that can check the health of a battery more than just a simple voltage check. They are relatively inexpensive.

With a volt meter measure you battery's voltage. It should be about 13 V on a freshly charged battery. If all is OK, then on both battery cables cleanup their connectors and the battery post and the points where they attach to the car. Try again.

Still a problem, test the battery- Many places like Autozone can and will test your battery under load.

Quote:
Without having a load test meter, there is a quick test you can still do with a regular meter. After all the cleaning and reconnecting of cables check for having a solid 12.6-13v with no load. Keep the meter connected and turn on the headlights. Under light load such as headlights the meter should still be reading at least 12.6v. If not, suspect the battery. If you try and start the car and the meter drops significantly -- say 11 v or lower the battery is again suspect and should be taken in for a proper evaluation. If the meter stays reading near battery voltage on both tests then start looking for a dirty or loose connection in the smaller wires which start at the solenoid terminal and feed the rest of the car. If those are good look for a bad ign or headlight switch.

I will check the posts and cables. But the ground straps and positive cables are brand new from max merit. The battery is is only a couple months old.

The battery was showing 12.4-12.6 volts.

If the symptom of not showing power underneath the dash board goes away and comes back randomly, but showing power at other points under the hood at all times, how would the battery/cables be at fault? wouldnt I be getting consistent test light readings at all points if it was a battery/cable issue?

Would a faulty ignition switch or headlight switch/breaker cause me to not get power randomly at wire 2B-Red, 2A-Red, 2C-red or 61-Red while having power at 2-Red in the engine bay at the voltage regulator? Those are the wires that are connected to those components, can splices in the factory harness go bad?

Another thing that has happened with this wiring harness is that the ignition wire 17B-Y & 17A-Y completely burned through its insulation at some point in its life. When the dash and wiring was out of the car I replaced that wire. So maybe that is related to this?

It could be a meter accuracy or poor connection at a lead issue but 12.4v on a standing or unloaded battery is marginal. It should read a minimum of 12.6v if fully charged. Each lead acid cell, fully charged, puts out 2.1v and a total of 6 cells gives the 12.6 on a 12 v battery or with 3 cells, 6.3v on a 6v system. Construction on the Optima battery is different but the total voltage is the same.

Power path is from the battery cable to the BAT terminal on starter solenoid and to 1A red, thru the ammeter and back out 2A where a splice then sends voltage to the regulator BAT terminal via 2, ign sw BAT terminal via 2B headlight sw BAT terminal via 2D and to the clock and body feed fuse via 2C. There should be constant power in that entire circuit so for those wires to all loose power, aside from the battery or cable, look to a connection issue at the solenoid BAT terminal or a bad ammeter or connection issue on its terminals. If you have a Clipper without an ammeter then the same items are connected via a splice from 1A directly to headlight sw, ign sw and clock and body fuse. Splices can go bad but it is not a thing that has been an issue with Packard harnesses. Dirty plugs and corroded inline connectors are more common problems but there are none used in the wires we are currently discussing.

17 is switched and only powered with ign sw in the right or run position. It feeds the ballast resistor and coil plus part of the fuse block. That wire is unprotected so for it to burn there must have been a short or else someone tried to add something way too large for the size of wire at the ballast resistor terminal or at the input side of the fuse block.

The terminals and fuses at the block have been known to oxidize and result in poor connections. Of course loose or poor crimp connections and shorts can always be an issue particularly if there are a lot of mods or haphazard installation of aftermarket items.

As a point of interest, HPH clarified the factory drawing so it shows more clearly which fuses are powered by the various feeds.

THANK YOU everyone for the help!! I guess I was just really tired by the time I was working through the electrical stuff on Tuesday.

I appreciate everyone's suggestions. I did get some time to work on it last night and after some playing around (and insight on where to look) I confirmed it was a bad ground. Initially my dad converted it to manual steering and this past weekend I installed the power steering pump to get it back to a power steering car. Well the ground cable is attached to the mounting bolt for the pump. So I just sanded that part of the pump bracket, put some dielectric grease on it and everything worked out! I am getting consistent power to everything that should get it.

verified that my headlight issue was me wiring the high beam switch wrong. with the wires where they are at now I have low and high beams.

figured out the reason for the dash turn signal indicators lighting up with dash lights and not blinking was because I had the indicator sockets in the wrong spots on the dash. Swapped some sockets and they work as they should!

verified that the bulb in the passenger parking light is good and the wiring is correct, the bulb just needed to be wiggled/positioned correctly to make contact in the socket. I am going to pick up a small wire brush that can go on my rotary tool so I can clean the corrosion out of the socket to get better/consistent contact in there.

Well on my way to getting this car on the road! thanks again!

Be sure the power to the socket is off before cleaning it with any metallic object to avoid a possible short. Brushing, then blowing it out with compressed air usually gets results.

If the light fixture has a lens gasket, it nmeeds to be in good shape to keep dust and water out. Water on a hot bulb may cause the glass to crack, and moisture and dirt will soon cause issues with the electrical contacts. Many sockets have a spring that pushes the insulator and contact against the bulb base. The parts need to move freely. Some sockets have a piece of foam rubber in place of a spring. The foam rubber is usually no good and in need of replacement.