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

Does anyone have pictures of the tach located at the glove box?

Thanks.

There is a photo of the drive here and I do remember a couple of photos showing the head if you want to search for them or perhaps someone else remembers where they might be. The member who posted the drive photo says he had posted one earlier showing the head and I think flackmaster posted a photo of another unit he had laying in his trophy case.

Very rare option and an even rarer generator needed that has the drive gear on it for the tach.

CD, here's a shot of the 1939 accessory tach in the '40 120 i owned 1974-83, in an article "Down to the Interstate in Ships: Modern Speed in Vintage Iron," about final gearing, avoiding valve recession, etc. Since the '40 dash virtually the same as '39s, it fit perfectly. Packard offered it for '39 because it was their first year for overdrive, something Chrysler offered since 1934, and the last generation 1936-38 Pierce-Arrow 8s & 12s came with as standard equipment. In the Pierce, the speedometer had three coincentric rings showing rpm at a given speed in both overdrive and underdrive.

The Packard tach drives off the generator like a T-series MG or early Corvette. Unfortunately, you lose your clock and its glovebox door position better for the passenger, but such cars have a narrow front seat. The senior version of the tach for the junior-based '39 319-ci Super-8, that engine in its last year, it and the 446 leftover Twelves sold in '39 replaced by the new 356, an enlarged version of the 120's 282-ci engine with four more unnecessary main bearings for marketing's sake, and the Wilcox Rich hydraulic valve lifters Cadillac had since 1936, has a slightly different face. But both accessory Packard tachometers came with 5,000 rpm faces, about as comical as the '37 supercharged Cord's 150-mph speedometer (all 1936-37 Cords came standard with tachs whether blown or not), or a '58 Thunderbird's 140-mph speedometer, or a '38-on Buick's 120-mph speedometer.

Maximum hp for your engine at 3,600 rpm, a speed you do n o t want to sustain. If you haven't already got overdrive, add it to your '39 club coupe. Jeff Adkins, Moose Motors, Penngrove, CA (Petaluma in the North Bay) has some. packardguy54@sbcglobal.net (707) 792-9985. Jeff also has 1935-56 Packard mechanical and electrical parts, drum brake parts for all domestics Auburn through Zephyr, and rebuilds components. Please tell him Mike, '47 Super Clipper, Walnut Creek, referred you. Get an R-11, slightly simplified over 1940-early '48's R-9, more plentiful and less expensive. This moot if your '39 has factory overdrive on its one-year-only R-6, which lacks the later units' electrical monitoring but works fine. So long as you fill and check transmission and overdrive separately, they rarely give trouble, and if they do, it's invariably a loose wire or bad ground, less of a problem in a '39 R-6.

BTW, CD, after the Cad/LaSalle transmissions in his 1960s methanol "top fuel" 1,000 hp Chrysler hemi rail dragsters blew apart, Don Garlits switched to a junior R-6 gearbox (no overdrive) and problem solved.

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