Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

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Good doctor,

Thanks for the info update. I was going to ask what the car was in your Avatar but for once I got smart and checked and in one of your earlier posts with the same pic were the words:

"In the photo, the car next to the Moretti 750 Zagato is a Fiat 1400 sedan that looks kind of like a 3/4 size early 1950s Plymouth :) ..."

Welcome to the group. I have a 56 Patrician. You are lucky it did not come with the electric shift, which can be a stinker to repair. Stay with the radials, the handling is vastly superior. I've owned a lot of different cars, but the best handling I ever had was a 1965 Alfa-Romeo Sprint GT. Enjoy your Patrician. IMHO it was the finest production sedan in the world in 1956.

May I respectfully disagree about the 1956 pushbutton shift? On my first 56 the PB didn't work right because some ham-fisted mechanic? stripped the threads used for adjustment. After I fixed that, the unit worked for the next four year (62-65 with no problems. The one on the Caribbean works but it may be due. I have started to design a mounting that would allow easier access to the unit, but it is still a great part of the car and always elicits positive comments at car shows. Wow! a pushbutton! I would never trade it for the cumbersome lever. It is a credit to the car that all of their gadgets work most of the time. I can cite GMs airbags and Chryslers torsion bars as far more prone to failure than Packard's PB or TL system. I'm sure Mr PB will weigh in with an opinion also.

I wouldn't have minded the pushbutton at all, as I think it looks cool. I do understand that they can be troublesome however.

The Packard is my first big car in at least 30 years. I've always owned sportscars, and have had something like 200 of them, including 50 Alfas. For the last 10 years or so, my daily drivers have been Hyundai Accents with bigger wheels/tires, suspension mods (shocks and springs) and computer chips for more hp; reliable and cheap, and with the upgrades, pretty quick with excellent handling.

I even take my modified 2001 Hyundai Accent 4-door(1600cc twin-cam with 5-speed stick shift) to the trace track to "play". I have beaten many sportscars with it at time trials. It has about 120 hp in a car that weighs about 2300 pounds.

About 30-35 years ago, I raced a 970cc Mini Cooper in the under 1 liter class in Europe, and in SCCA D-sedan in the US, with some success.

I'm too old for door-to-door racing, but still enjoy time trials..

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If my real intent was to get a BIG car, I would have rather gotten something like the HUGE Mercedes 300 Adenauer sedan, but they are 10 times the money I paid for the Packard! Part of the reason I bought the Packard is that it was the financial steal of the century, based on it's condition and the fact the seller threw in a $2200 tranny rebuild that was done just before I got the car. He didn't have to do it, but said the car was in perfect mechanical condition, and when I picked it up, the trans was slipping..

Right you are, Randy.

Like any new technology, the pushbutton control system had some glitches, but I believe they were all caught by Packard, with fixes published. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after Detroit operations were shutdown and the 1957 models unveiled that the Packard dealer network began to evaporate. Fortunately, many of these issues were reiterated - and some expanded and improved upon - in Studebaker Service Bulletins that were published, through 1960.

It should come as little surprise, then, that the pushbutton systems suffered from lack of competent service (and sheer brute force). I've seen more than a few that were badly repaired, myself. Of course, there are also some issue due to sheer old age - things that the original design may have never anticipated. Heck, what engineer ever expected that their product would still be in use over 50 years later? Sadly, too many cars have been converted to manual selector - some with nothing more than a hole cut in the floor and a "stick" welded directly to the shift shaft.

Thankfully, there are people, like Mr. Pushbutton, who know these issues, are willing to share their experience, and can supply parts. Also, in addition to Packard's own service info, there is an AutoLite manual on this system that is available here for download.

Personally, I would never expect to find any local repair shop that was willing, let alone able, to properly diagnose and service the pushbutton system, but it's well worth the effort for me to learn to work on it myself and retain the feature. In fact, I may have enough good used parts to convert the manual selector in one of my Pats to pushbutton control.

IMHO, the pushbutton transmission control holds up better than many technoliges introduced in vehicles in recent years.

I agree about the longevity. Aside from a stuck relay issue a few months ago, mine is still working and going strong although it was completely gone thru several years ago.

About reliability though, it does bring to mind a tale from the original owners son via the man I bought it from. The car spent its early years in San Francisco in the downtown and Nob Hill areas. Anyone who's been there knows those streets are not the most level, some I'd wager almost 45 degrees.

The first few years of ownership, it had to be towed or pushed more than once to get out of a parking space because the shift motor didn't have the power to bring it out of park. Apparently his mother kept forgetting to curb the wheels and make sure it didn't move any further before going into park on the hill. Anyway, after it happened once too often for his father, the car was traded and spent the next 20+ years on level ground with an almost daily 100 mile commute thru SF and rarely over 45 mph-- .

Howard -

I'm sure Randy Berger can tell us some similar tales about steep streets in the Greater Pittsburgh area.

You might be surprised to know that, as a District Mamager with Chrysler back in the mid-1980s, I ran into the same sort of thing with automatics in Chrysler minivans, and there was a service bulletin issued. Yet, I've even run into hard shifting out of Park in other vehicles that were similarly parked.

I have trained myself, when parking on steep grades, to apply the parking brake (in any vehicle) before shifting into Park and not to release it until after I shift out of Park.

Yet, Ultramatics with manual slectors were not immune from getting stuck in Park or losing the Park function altogether. As such, I wonder how the modern improvements by Ultramatic Dynamics hold up under such conditions.

The 55 ultramatic had issues with park and there was a fix for it, I learned early on to apply the 'merg and then shift into "P" and to shift out of "P" before I released the 'merg. I was bitten a couple of times but learned quickly

The July '55 Counselor advised reworking the rear ramp of neutral/park detent and, if needed, replacing the park lock gear with a new dsign with "form ground" teeth.

The January '56 Counselor advised of a condition where the trans lever and rod were so aligned as to cause a bind. A redesigned lever and rod were released as a kit for service.

Studebaker revisited this issue again in 1957, for 1954 Gear Start as well as Twin Ultramatic - advising to check for excessive clearance/wear in the related parts.

My first Pat had manual selector and suffered from this. It got to the point were I had no Park gear, and because the park brake wasn't holding, I carried a make shift wheel chock. Thankfully, I never had that problem with any of my pushbutton-equipped Packards.