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

1941 180.

Can someone tell me what this is called? It’s on the driver side firewall.

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Sure looks like a starter solenoid. If you twist off that top cap there will be a button underneath that allows you to activate the starter from under the hood. Really handy for setting TDC and timing.
The small wire comes from the starter button or ignition switch if it is newer with a key start, or even from the carb on some that use the gas pedal linkage to activate the starter.
Bob J.

Believe those are the solenoids that operate the power window pump. 41-42 had a reversible pump under the car that both pushed fluid in the window cylinders to raise the piston up to close windows and in addition to a spring, reversed pump direction to pull the fluid back out to lower the window.

Postwar, the hydraulic operation was simplified and pumps only ran one direction to push the piston up. Gravity and the large spring pulling the window down while pushing fluid out of the cylinder was used to lower the window.

I'm going with starter solenoid simply because there's nothing else in the car that requires a 200+ amp connection.

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Starter solenoid is a single solenoid and in 41 was mounted on top of the starter motor. That setup on the firewall is a solenoid pair for reversing the pump. It uses heavy cables because of distance to the pump and because the pump is essentially a specially wound Autolite starter motor. Those could also be custom made non stock cables installed during a restoration.

Here is the 42 diagram and since the top solenoid in the diagram is 42, is slightly different than the one in the photo. In 41 they used a separate relay to prevent both solenoids from being active at the same time always giving preference to the window down solenoid. In 42 the extra relay was eliminated and they went to a special solenoid with internal contacts. When the solenoid was energized the contacts opened the command wire going to the other solenoid and did the same function as the relay.

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That is so cool, I had no idea and it makes perfect sense to use the high power of a starter motor to run the hydraulics, that way you are not stealing Horsepower from the motor, Clever!
Love learning stuff on this site.
Thanks!
Bob J.

Howard (HH56) and Dave (JD in KC) had been so kind to -> answer my questions about this more than a decade ago.
While cable 1 is connected to the battery, follow cables 2 & 3 to find the obove mentioned reversible pump.

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Interesting Howard. So does one of those thick cables go to the engine starter, and the other to the battery post?

Thanks for the information. Interesting. As I had never given it much thought, I would guess then that the mystery tank mounted under the floor on the outboard side of the driver's seat would maybe be the hydraulic fluid tank? The car no longer has hydraulic windows. A previous owner had converted them to electric that is run off a separate stand alone battery in the trunk. This set up works, but it requires periodic charging of the battery back there.

We had three 1942 Packards and one 1941 converted to full electric windows. We used 6-volt motors rather than 12-volt motors so that they could be run off the car's regular battery. They work like a charm.

We did this after several overhauls of the hydro-electric unit. The problem with the original system is that if the windows are not used regularly, they will fail.