Packard Forum Index » Project Blogs

Had some time tonight, so I removed both solenoids, gently sandblasted the posts, cleaned all the connections, and put everything back in the correct orientation. Connected the battery and flipped the switch to "on". Nothing happened. So double checked that power was where it should be (green wire, bus bar, upper posts on the solenoids, etc). All good.

So car went back up in the air (switch off) and pulled the controller cover off. Removed the yellow and blue wire going to the limit switch and tested continuity. All good. Pulled the pink and orange next....no continuity. So I suspected a broken wire at the limit switch. The switch had obviously been worked on in the past with rubberized coating over everything. After some work to get it all off and expose the ends of the wire I found this:



Broken pink wire that had been repaired previously. So cleaned up the wires on both ends of the break, flux, tinned with solder and reconnected them back together. Should be better this time around.



Taped it all up nice and cleanly, put all the wires back in the controller box and closed it up. Car back on the ground, rear sitting very low. Turned the switch on and within about 5 seconds the relay kicked and the rear end moved up nice and level. Awesome!

Stood on the bumper and the motor kicked in (rather quickly) and raised it up to level again. Stepped off the bumper and waited for it go down. And waited. Hmm, nothing happening. Went ahead and grounded the top post of the "down" solenoid for a second, which triggered the solenoid and started moving it down. Without it grounded anymore it continued to go down until it reached level and shut itself off. I repeated this same test with the same results.

So now the only problem I'm having is getting the "down" solenoid to kick on like it should. Once it's kicked then everything works normal. Only takes a quick tap to ground to do it. Not sure if it's just not getting enough of a signal from the control box or what. Thoughts?

Quote:

How long did you wait before you grounded the Down solenoid? That was the direction you watched the bimetallic strip in the control box have problems when we were testing the other day.

When you "Stood on the bumper and the motor kicked in (rather quickly) and raised it up to level again.", how long was "rather quickly"? Since the control box had been previously opened, they could have tried to adjust the time delay. Take a look at the Up and Down contacts the bimetallic strip connects to when it moves.

If it continued to go down even after you removed your manual ground from the solenoid, the ground had to be supplied by the Blue ground from the control box. Either the the timer took longer to engage than you initially gave it, or the ground isn't good enough for enough current to flow to engage the solenoid. You can check the ground quality to the solenoid by manually engaging the Down relay in the control box. Making sure the control box lever is connecting the positive green source to the Down relay coil, manually move the bimetallic strip so it contacts the Down relay coil ground. If the solenoid engages, you will need to look at the delay. If it doesn't, time to check the current draw of the solenoid coil using the Blue wire from the control box and compare it to the draw of the manual ground and the draw on the Up solenoid.