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

Years ago an old timer was telling me about how the Packard 160 was a hot car at the post war drag strip because it could beat a Rocket 88. However, this didn't last long because the transmissions would blow up.

The trans cover is just not up to severe service and the detents are too easy to override. I've seen them bent, cracked, warped and what not. One thing I never checked was putting a floor shifter from a 16th series car in a later car.

However, the rest of the parts in the shift linkage wear as well especially the two arms on the steering column and the internal spring in the shift column is another weak point. All of these problems create lost motion that results in the 2-3 shift fork moving before the 1-R fork is in neutral. When the car was new the shifter was very "snappy", that is there was a built in tension in the detent so that a small amount of force at the shift column would cause the transmission to snap into and out of gear - like a remote control. Well, it doesn't take long for such a system to produce wear and slop. I suppose all the linkage points could be built up and remachined, but the weak point is in the detent which - being under considerable built in force to produce the self shifting effect (shifter snap) - causes the cover to distort and disable the whole system. It was a great sales feature that sold cars but not very robust.

Now here is a strange story: I did some work on an 18th series car that sat in storage for 45 years. The car was passed down in the family and when the son showed up to drive it he couldn't shift it. I showed him the imaginary shift gate method and his response was "It didn't used to be that way". Go figure. When the car came in the linkage was seized and I had the column apart to free everything up. However, the cover must have become distorted because the detents were sloppy and difficult to align properly as per the manual.

The early cars with cane shift had narrow brass shoes on the shifter forks, the column shift cars ahd wide brass shoes. Thus you cannot just put a floor shift cover on a later car. Never looked into changing the shoes??

I've seen the innards of countless column shift cars, nefver saw a distorted cover, they are quite robust. With familiarity of the entire shift linkage system I've been able to have beautifully shifting cars. Adjustment is critical. Of course I never "speed shift" my cars, especailly my hearses.

Hearses have a diffeent part # for the gears as they are hardened. Have a 50,000 mile one and it tried to go into two gears at once, KABOOM!!. Hardened=brittle, KABOOM
NOw repaired and adjusted and shifted carefully.

Motor City Packards is considering to reproduce the 1-R and 2-3 shift forks.

We now have a set of original blueprints for the two forks. Being in the Motor City we have a wealth of talent and skilled tradespeople that can do this for us. We feel we could reproduce this part in modern materials and do it at a price that would be cost effective.

We feel this would be a useful product, but we do not know how many 1940 to 19XX owners would be willing to purchase these reproduced forks.

If you think this is worthwhile, then please post a response here.

Thanks.

Roger, can you post the Packard part numbers of those items you're contemplating to manufacture?

Looking at the 35-41 Parts List PN #333545 fits 17/18/19th Series for the 2-3 shift fork, PN #333581 fits 17th Series for the 1-R fork and PN #347623 fits 18/19th Series for the 1-R fork.

If 333545 and 347623 are being reproduced I would be interested.

Attach file:

---

  (38.67 KB)


  (32.69 KB)

Of course it will depend on the final cost, but I'd be interested. If it's the same part for the 1941-42 models, I'd be interested in four.

Yes, part numbers would be good. And I can see in another comment we need to determine the correct part to reproduce.

The part numbers that Ozstatman listed were NOT the ones we were considering. We thought the shifting problem was with the Steering Column Levers. But we could be wrong.

Below is the part diagram I used as reference. The part numbers we were looking at are 360425 and 360426. Please see the photos attached.

If you think we are on the wrong track, then let me know and we well work on the right parts for the fix.

Attach file:

---

  (147.69 KB)


  (170.11 KB)

Correction to my Post #12 above.

Shifter forks on floor shift cars did not have brass "shoes", the fork itself was narrow and did the shifting. Cars with column shift had forks with brasss shoes and the groove they went into was wider. Sorry for the error.

Fred Kanter
Kanter Auto Products

I am curious about the repro question. I don't own one of these models but with the popularity and considerable number of cars produced that used the same mechanism, are there no new parts still available at all from vendors? I know anticipated demand is one of the questions but I would think with the quantities made, these parts would still be available. Would be a shame to reproduce something that even though limited, might still be around. Is there a specific area that wears on these that might be serviced by some kind of retrofit piece you could make & could be installed by drilling a hole or something simple instead?

Hello Howard:

We have looked into all of those alternatives. Joel Ray of Patrician Industries is the Director of Projects for Motor City Packards and would have told us if an NOS part is readily available. As for a fix kit we thought of that too, but how do we make a fix kit when the parts my wear out in somewhat different places. And if you have the part off to fix, then why not put on a new part, made of better materials?

While we have not priced out the part, we had very good results reproducing the 3003 light bulbs for 1933-34 Packards and spring covers for 1938-39 cars.

Today the real issue it seems to be if we are all talking about the same part. We thought the shifter LEVERS were the culprit and someone else has suggested the problem is with the shifter FORKS. We need to determine the correct part(s) to reproduce.