Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

To get the bars back in correct places, IF the motor will still work you can do it electrically. Take the red and brown wires off the motor to keep anything else from interacting. Use a jumper wire from the battery (a fuse on the wire would be good) and TOUCH one or the other terminals to see which way the motor needs to turn to back the short bar out of the rear and around to the front without trying to pull it further. Once you get the direction then just make the motor do it. Watch the levers while it is moving and then stop when they are in approx the right place per the drawing. The motor will strain & groan as it reaches the high point and then will be good again as the load lessens. If the motor works and all is well mechanically again, time to go back and see what has happened electrically before connecting things back up again. If the motor won't work, or something has been damaged then we have a problem and will require some careful disassembly.

One thing that is good to know when working on returning the vehicle to stock: The timing box on the frame sends out a ground to the solenoids when activated. The pull-in coil of the solenoids are internally connected to "hot" (+ 12VDC) via the bus bar "feed" side terminal and wants a ground to complete the circuit and make the motor turn. Current to feed the logic circuit flows through the brake light switch until you step on the brakes, the power comes off of the TL circuit and goes on the brake light circuit. There is a spring loaded switch that senses either up or down, when the vehicle's position changes due to loading or unloading the appropriate switch will close, that sends current through one of two thermal coils wrapped around another contact. The wire wrapped around the "leg" of this switch heats up, which slowly causes the leaf it is mounted on to bend, after 5-8 seconds the end of that leaf closes another switch, which closes the relay for that direction's travel inside the box, that relay sends a ground to the corresponding solenoid. Aside from the time-delay function it is a very simple system. You would like to think. But every G-D shadetree hack and Shell Station monkey knows better and hacks up the wiring "improving" the system.
There is a refurbished version available that must be using a 555 timer circuit in place of the thermal switch. I have talked to many who have used it and they all give good reports.

I ran out of time to work on the car today, so I'll continue on tomorrow. I hope that this will not turn into one of those 'must replace everything in the system' repairs. I broke one of my old rules by trying to do too many 'fixes' at one time by bypassing the auto-park relay and fixing the TL system. Now I can't tell which, if any, componenta were bad in the first place.

The car's rear dropped when I disconnected the old manual TL switches and hooked up the battery. This is when the connecting rods moved to their current bound position. Now the 30 amp fuse blows when I apply power to the system. Does this indicate a bad controller box?

The torsion bar could be wound up so far the link to control switch is trying to command movement but with the bars on the wrong side can't move the proper direction is one possibility fuse is blowing. I would disconnect the motor wiring and get things back mechanically before doing anything else. After that, disconnect the link from L bar to control switch. Allow the switch to return to center and verify there is a center with spring tension on each side--nothing flopping on the lever arm. Keep the wires disconnected but in a position where you can put in a fuse and then check the red and brown wire to ground for voltage. If voltage, then start checking the control box, wiring and solenoids for a short or some inappropriate wiring that is causing a solenoid to energize. If nothing found there, look for a stuck or shorted solenoid. If no voltage, good.

I would look for either the blue or orange wire going from the box to the solenoids having a short to ground, or perhaps one of the relays inside the box is stuck shut, this can happen if the battery voltage is down when the system tries to work, the lack of voltage causes the current go raise, which can cause the contacts to weld in place when activated.

Lok the car over closely around the dash area. Be sure that there is not somekind of MANUAL operation sw. rigged up for the TL operation. Look on the TL MOTOR. There are 2wo , exactly 2 and only 2 posts on the TL MOTOR. One post is for UP, the other is for down. Trace the wires back thru the car to see where they go.

IT is quite possible that the TL was reweired for a MANUAL operation sw. thus disabling and negating the oem wireing and controls for the TL. POssibly thru the toggle sw. that is under the dash almost directly in line with the driver LEFT knee.

Get the wireing diagrams as OD recommended above and study them.

There are 2wo LIMITER sw's on the TL gear box. THose mite be faulty in someway too.

The best thing to do is run 2wo wires from the TL motor to a MANUAL switch on the dash (use an antenna sw.) and eleminate the oem control hocus pocus. That's what i did.

There is a STB or SC that describes how to do it. Especialy useful on the Jr's in very hilly areas.

"The car's rear dropped when I disconnected the old manual TL switches and hooked up the battery"

EXTREME CAUTION needed here. Do NOT allow the TL to raise or drop too far. It will twist the gear box shaft. THe TL gear box has enormous gear reduction and will ruin difficult and expense parts if allowed to frop or raise too far. U HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

I am going to bow out of this thread and just read the exchange between HH56 and BHAPPY. There is an old adage about too many cooks etc. I am much interested in the final outcome and will follow this thread closely, but will leave these two alone to resolve all the different issues.

Also note that there has been one or two reports over the years of TL with OEM wireing and control that have repositioned themselves 'over nite" while parked.

My recommendation at this point is to wire the TL directly to a manual switch on the dash. DO NOT use ANY of the oem wireing configuration nor controls. The only down side to direct wireing to a manual control sw. is that u have to be very careful not to run it up or down too much with the manual sw.