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In addition to the following:

Service Letters (SL)
Service Counselors (SC)
Service Techincal Bulletins (STB)
Studebaker Service Bulletings (SSB)
General Letters (GL)

The Techincal Letters (TL) have now been added to the master Factory Service Index.

I find these contain more information on a variety of topics than actually made it into the Service Letters.

This is especially helpful for folks with earlier cars, 1st—9th series, as the Technical Letters we currently have are mostly focused on those years.

The Factory Service Index makes it faster to find what you are looking for, as opposed to drilling through all the above documents to find something that may apply to your car and issue. Which may be many years in the future from the model year of your car.

We still have the Trade Letters to add and a few other offshoots as well. Since we are missing a few issues of the above different types of letters/bulletins, we will fill in the information for them as those pieces get donated to the Literature Archive here on the website.

Thanks!

Trade Letters added to Factory Service Index

Skimming through these, and the other Letters, as I am checking them for relevant content, I do find it interesting in the 1st through about the 11th or 12th series that they made retrofit parts to update prior models with changes in later models. Not just things like mechanicals (engine parts, shocks, brakes, etc), but actual body styling.

Here is one example I thought was interesting:

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/TL/T-2545.pdf

It talks about the optional equipment needed to mimic the appearance of a 9th Series V Radiator/Grille on an 8th Series.

There are also several other instances like this. I wonder how many folks had these factory-approved alterations and fast-forward to the future and are perplexed why their car has different equipment on it than expected. They probably figured that was done by an owner way later in a car's life or/and have been told it was incorrect when it was a "factory" approved change.

This could be the meat of a great article for the Commorant or something.

I believe this was touched upon in one of the books where the author mentioned Packard making improvements and running changes throughout a series production and in many instances would offer the upgrades to previous owners of that series or even older series when possible or feasible.

This was initially done to counter other mfgs who typically sold a brand new looking car every year which instantly made the previous model obsolete. Packard owners noticed this too but tended to be long standing more conservative customers not necessarily wanting the latest and greatest flash. By doing the upgrade program many still got the current improvements for a minimal cost. This way they did not feel or see their cars immediately losing value and would realize that buying a Packard did not mean early obsolescence..

When the junior cars came along this retrofit program was not as prevalent although Packard did do something similar by making some accessories available for older models. To some extent the programs to retrofit the R11 ODs and the new 52 Easamatic into the 51 models was the same thing. OD was initially promoted as a reliability and Easamatic a safety issue but they were still a throwback to that make it look less obsolete era..

Very interesting Kev and Howard. Hope this isn't too far off topic but do you know what the "BRH:HN" means in the lower corner of the second page? I know that was a "thing" back in the day but don't know what it's called.

Also I noticed often the "BRH" part would be the person's initials who signed the letter, but it's not the case here.

I wonder if it has to do with the telegram codes that Packard used for factory communication. There are a couple letters explaining the various telegram codes.

Parts and Accessory Bulletins added to the Factory Service Index

Also added missing Parts and Accessory Bulletins:

47P-15 - SURPLUS HYDRAULIC FLUID
47P-17 - ASH RECEIVER FOR CLUB SEDANS

Also:

46P-40 AUTOMATIC WINDSHIELD WASHER
49P-35 BACKUP LIGHT EQUIPMENT FOR 23RD SERIES ULTRAMATIC CARS
50P-44 ROTARY ANTENNA - 22ND AND 23RD SERIES CARS

Now we know why those rotary antennas are so hard to find. They were back then also, as Packard lost it's supplier.

Quote:
This is unfortunate to learn as my car has this, however it is broken and not something I had looked into yet.

Kevin

Don't know where other post is.

But the scanning came out really well.

Better than the book