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I think I would change your brake fluid since it probably needs done anyway, and pay special attention to bleeding the system properly. Be sure you use the correct type as 4 and 5.1 are compatible but not 5. I would also remove a front drum and check the wear pattern. If there's not much contact, for all 4 wheels tweak the shoes on a press like Ross showed a couple months ago and/or get the drums turned.

Mine squeaks big time.

I pretty much can say. Slipping bushings..

Only bushings I never have replaced are the front torque arm. I have New ones . Haven't done it.

What gear were you in when you selected Drive in each case?

The two times it didn't work I was in Park beforehand. The time it did work I was in High and changed to Drive. Sounds like maybe it didn't actually change.

In your video at 1:19, you turn a corner and then you are “almost flooring it” and it sounds and looks like a shift at 1:27 and then at 1:31 you comment that “there’s direct” drive. The High button is pressed, but it sounds like it is in Drive.

There are three distinct "gears" while in High. Shift from Low to High to Direct Drive. But shouldn't it just be high range torque converter to Direct Drive while in High? So maybe the adjustments are off so that H is actually D.

In your video at 2:24 when you say “that’s full brakes” do I understand that to be you pressing the brake pedal as hard as you can and the pedal has stopped? How far down is the pedal? It also looks like it is not braking smoothly, is that the case?
Do you know when in the last ten years the previous owner did the brake work?

I probably could have pressed harder on the pedal but it felt like it was essentially all the way down. But I was definitely pressing very hard. It's not braking smoothly....some pulling, some vibrations. I don't know when the previous owner did the brakes, but I'm assuming it was towards the beginning of his ownership. I'll look through the documents to find out when.

I think I would change your brake fluid since it probably needs done anyway, and pay special attention to bleeding the system properly. Be sure you use the correct type as 4 and 5.1 are compatible but not 5. I would also remove a front drum and check the wear pattern. If there's not much contact, for all 4 wheels tweak the shoes on a press like Ross showed a couple months ago and/or get the drums turned.

It was definitely replaced with DOT 5, not 5.1. Isn't 5 supposed to be a lifetime thing? Speaking of brake fluid, I really want to find a remote reservoir to fill the master with. The location of the fill plug is a pain.

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The symptom of working when going from one gear to the next from one direction such as from park to high or drive but missed or incorrect gears when coming from the other direction such as from reverse to a forward gear is a symptom of both the actuator setscrew being loose or the assembly set incorrectly as well as the inner lever being loose on the shaft. The loose inner lever is a well known issue with the 54-6 GS and TU transmissions and once there is a little bit of play the situation only gets worse.

In addition to following the manual on how to adjust the actuator sector setscrew to the shaft, it might be wise to drop the pan beforehand just to check the condition of the setscrew and lever on the inside where the shaft and lever control the manual valve. Even if things look and feel OK now, if there is only the setscrew thru the lever it might also be a good idea to add the roll pin to prevent future difficulty. That mod is discussed in several threads on the forum.

Unfortunately, while it is fairly easy to disconnect linkage and check for play because of a loose lever with a column shift setup, it is not nearly as easy to check for that situation with the electric shift because of the difficulty in manually trying to to move the shaft and actuator from the outside and still be able to feel the detents and how much movement is possible between them. You could try by removing the bolt in the case on the adjust strap end and grabbing the motor to move the actuator up and down while trying to feel the detents as the setscrew adjust instructions detail but checking visually with the pan off is often the surest way.

Kevin,

"The two times it didn't work I was in Park beforehand. The time it did work I was in High and changed to Drive. Sounds like maybe it didn't actually change."
In your previous comment you said "Drive range is funky. Twice it failed to move past low range torque converter to high range. One time it worked fine."
So from Park, pressing Drive resulted in Low and from High, pressing Drive resulted in Drive, correct?
The order of the gears is Park, Neutral, High, Drive, Low, Reverse.
It sounds like going from Park to Drive went too far and got Low.
The worm brake is there to limit the inertia so it doesn't travel too far.
Have you tried Park to Low, Reverse to Low, Reverse to Drive, and Reverse to High?
Electrically, if the actuator passed Drive and got Low, it would reverse direction and go back to Drive.

"There are three distinct "gears" while in High. Shift from Low to High to Direct Drive. But shouldn't it just be high range torque converter to Direct Drive while in High? So maybe the adjustments are off so that H is actually D."

So when you changed from High to Drive at 1:46 in the video, did you hear the actuator do anything?

Yes, High range should use only high gear and direct drive.
That brings back the question, what gear were you in when you selected High and got the " three distinct "gears" while in High"?
If Park to High got three "gears", Drive, and Park to Drive got Low, can you get it into High?

It sounds more and more like the actuator is out of alignment and moving to the far side of the manual valve detent and the spring loaded plungers push it into one gear or the other depending on how far the inertia carries it, but the difference isn't enough to reach the electrical contact to make it go back. Adjusting the worm brake might get consistent results.

On the brakes, you said that the pedal "felt like it was essentially all the way down.", I hope you mean that it would not move any further, not that it was against the floor.

"It's not braking smoothly....some pulling, some vibrations".
Pulling is difference side to side, vibrations mean that something isn't round, and squeezing means that the shoe is vibrating when contacting the drum usually due to the mating surfaces not being as designed such as rusty drums.

"It was definitely replaced with DOT 5, not 5.1. Isn't 5 supposed to be a lifetime thing?"
The longer life of silicone brake fluid is because it is not hygroscopic (doesn't absorb water). Of course the system has to be completely dry when it is introduced or the water will do damage wherever it is located and can still boil and cause problems. It also only protects the inside of the hydraulics from moisture.

Life has been busy so I didn't have a chance to work on the 400 until last night. Even then it was just a few minutes to look over a few things.

1.) Power steering looks to be the source of most of the drips on the ground. The cylinder was rebuilt and it looks like some hoses were replaced. Not sure which are new and which are not. But it seems like it's leaking from most, if not all, of the line connections. I went through and tightened all of them up, cleaned off the drips, and will see if that does anything. But some hose replacements might be in my future.



2.) Didn't get a ton of time to check into the throttle linkage, but I did note quite a bit of play on the junction between the firewall linkage and the carb linkage. That would be the "dead" spot I'm feeling in the pedal...where I have to press it a ways before it actually does anything. I'll look closer at it to see what I can do to tighten that up.

3.) Pulled passenger front wheel and drum to have a look inside, just to get a general idea of what the condition of the brakes was. I'll need to pull all the others and see what they look like. I was pleasantly surprised to see how nice everything looked in there



Pads looked good and the wear pattern seems to be pretty even



Some ridges in the drum. I may have them turned, but I'm also wary of getting them too thin.



4.) Looked around at the front suspension to see where the clunking might be coming from. Can't see much of the lower arm bushings, but my guess is they have seen better days



I noticed that the lower shock mounts are completely shot. It wouldn't surprise me if the clunking is the lower mount going up and down. There is no rubber left on either side and plenty of room for the shock to move. I'm going to get some measurements and see about getting some replacements. Some of the ones listed in the Parts Cross Reference doesn't seem to be correct.

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One option is to see if you can add a spring in tension to pull two links together better. Very common on linkages for generators for example.

Kevin-I'm late to the game with this post. I read through every response to this point. The Torsion Level limit switches suffer from age-related issues and become unreliable. I rewire these for clients, which is usually the problem. I have observed that car guys that are great mechanics are rarely good at soldering or frankly anything electrical. That's why most of the V8 Packards out there with their original wiring have just become Red/Blue/Yellow crimp splice hell. Here are some progressive photos of What I do with these switches. First thing is I test them with an Ohm Meter to see if they are still functional. Most are, just have deteriorated solder connections at the terminals and petrified insulation. A lot of these maladies are why people bypass the timing box on the chassis and wire in manual switches, and they always wire them in the dead-wrong way, bypassing the protection of the limit switches. That 69 year old wire doesn't owe you anything, it's time for all new wire for the entire T-L system, with properly made solder connections, not crimp splices. As my old boss used to say "Those crimp splices/terminals are for kids putting stereos in their jalopies."

Here is a primer I wore on the Electrical Functions of the Torsion Level System, and how it is meant to work. This is not a how to diagnose chart per se, I will make one of those in the spring when I can resume work on my car, but tells you how the system is meant to work. Anyone with reasonable logic skills can read this and know where to trace power and continuity to make the system function.

Here is a little primer on the automatic leveling feature of the Torsion-Level suspension. There is a switch located on the lower lip of the instrument panel, to the left of the steering wheel. It powers the compensator timing box on the chassis. Left is off, right is on.
The compensator timing box located under the car has a rotating arm that has a center detent. It swings left or right as indicated by the blue arrows. This arm is linked to the driver's side full length front torsion bar , the rotation of that bar causes the switch to travel to either side of center. It is connected to a set of electrical contacts inside the Timing box marked "A" in this photo. When the car is level this contact is open. When a non-level state occurs the contact closes in the appropriate direction.
This sends +12 V power to the time delay switch marked "B" , to the coil for that direction. This coil acts as a heating element, as the power is applied the wire gets hotter, causing the long "U" shaped bimetal secondary contact to bend towards its contact. This heating/bending process takes 5-7 seconds to happen, this is the time delay feature to insure that the non-level state is constant, not a momentary event like a bump.
When one of those contacts closes it sends power to the corresponding relay, marked "C&D", closing that relay which sends a GROUND (not +12V) to the corresponding motor control solenoid, through the limit switch for that direction of travel. If the car is too far up or down, one the limit switches will open and prevent the system from operating, they are wired in series with the wire that sends GROUND to each solenoid.
The solenoids that power either side of the leveling motor receive +12V power for the pull-in coils internally and are seeking a ground to complete the circuit. The solenoid engages, the motor turns, cranking the intermediate bars to level the car. When they reach a level state switch "A" opens and the system is at rest until the next non-level state occurs. This is the 1956 system. 1955 is basically the same, except the world is out of 1955 boxes. This happened in 1956, so Packard made a retrofit wiring adapter to use the 1956 box on 1955 cars,

So I didnt see anyone post about your temp gauge situation. but I have a 56 Patrician and caribbean. The gauge never gets to the middle on the patrician. No mater the temp outside or if I am running the a/c (I have the a/c 4 core radiator and a/c fan). On really hot and humid days the caribbean temp gauge does get to the middle and sometimes a little higher. I have never used a temp gun on the engine or radiator.