Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Thanks for the info! I didn't touch anything but the relay and solenoid before, so I'm sure its a matter of going through the rest of the system now. I'm driving it over to my buddy's house anyways, now he's interested to figure it out as well I'll post back with results! Thanks again!

Cleaned all the contacts on the gov. and the lock out switch, and found a loose connection to the lockout switch, fixed that... Back in business!!

The kick down switch doesn't, and never did work.. when i fully depress the throttle it doesn't even touch the switch, about an inch between... I can see a definite wear mark where it did work at some time in the past, but is obviously way out of whack now. What's the procedure for this?

When I wired up my R11 in my 38 coupe I didn't use a kickdown switch. I put a switch under the dash that breaks the wire from the governor. To "kickdown" I just flip the switch and touch the clutch and the car drops out of OD. I used to have a on-off-momentary switch. The momentary side just grounded out the coil but I found that hitting the clutch was enough to relieve the torque on the tranny to allow dropping out of OD

Quote:
An inch is a fairly large amount to be off.

I don't have any decent photos of the linkage or kickdown switch setup but assuming nothing is bent, damaged or the wrong item there are only two adjustments.

The switch can move up and down a slight amount by working with the mounting nuts on the threaded portion of the switch. One interesting thing is Packard switches seem to be fairly limited while the R11 switches for other mfgs have a large threaded range for the up down. Packard relied on the remaining linkage being precisely adjusted. That linkage can be shortened a bit by adjusting the link on one of the rods so the pedal actuator will be closer to the switch. An inch is an awfully long amount for that adjustment though.

Perhaps someone with a manual trans 51-4 car can give some measurements of the adjustable rod length so you will have a starting point. A photo would help so you can make sure what you have is proper for the car. It's possible someone tried to make something for another carburetor or model car work at one point.

The adjustments are kind of a tradeoff. You have to be careful not to move one thing and limit something else at one end or the other. Basically you adjust so the throttle is closed all the way when the accelerator is released and when the throttle is all the way open, the little extra push to compress the spring in linkage will allow the switch to activate.

I like the toggle idea a lot.. That makes a lot more sense to me than the throttle switch.. Then you could switch out of OD without having to floor the throttle, that would be nice for when passing or when in second gear in traffic. I find that a lot of times I'll slow for traffic, but not quite slow enough to click out of OD, and when you accelerate again the engine kind of bogs. Being able to toggle out of OD would be a huge benefit there.

Anyways, it does seem like a huge gap between the linkage and switch.. Maybe something got bent?

Possibly bent or perhaps the carb or throttle operating rod was changed. There are 4 different rods used depending on the carb model and how the car was equipped originally. If a wrong length rod is now being used that can mess up things.

The pull rod to the carb is adjustable for length. In addition, that fat part there in the middle is a spring loaded joint that is supposed to give when you tromp it for kickdown. That way you don't yank the arm off the side of the carb before the linkage hits the kickdown switch.

These joints are often frozen from disuse. Take the rod off and clamp it up in a vise. A little yanking, twisting and loose juice will get it going.