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Hi All - first post. I'm posting on behalf of my non computer father.

Last fall he purchased a 39 six business coupe that has been sitting fully disassembled for 30 years. He has got a tremendous task to reassemble it. Currently the stack of parts is at my place, and now that the weather is improving he is coming (1200 miles away) to pick up as much as he can in a few weeks and get started on the project, for which he extremely looking forward to.

We are both big believers in that overdrive thing; I've done an OD 5 speed stick in my fairly serious street 69 Rambler, and a A500 Bricklin, and he's done a 5 over Studebaker truck and has R10 Willys and Kaiser stuff. I'm putting a Warn style OD in my 62 Willys pickup. If you want to be able to drive the car any amount the OD is sure nice.

So we are trying to figure out the best way to do the Packard. It would be nice to keep it as stock as possible, at least period correct.

I've been searching the fourm and there is a lot of information, but I am unsure of a few things.

It sounds like the R11 would be a fairly original adaptation in the 39. Am I correct in that the best thing would be to find a late 40s/early 50s Packard small input shaft transmission with an R11? Would that fit in with a minimum of modification to the car? Bolt right to the engine? Any crossmember rework required?

Are the small input R11 combo's common? What cars did they come in and any suggestions on where to look?

It would be nice to find a proper R6 setup for the car, but the consensus seems to be that are rare and not the best functionally. But that would be an option.

How about the R9, does it fit and adapt as well? I'm getting the opinion not, but it's probably not that bad.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Ken and Doug

Hi and welcome.

JMO, but if you do not find the R6 to be year correct then the R11 would be the next choice. There is a poster on the forum who has installed one in his 39 and can give the details on making it fit. Since the OD unit becomes effectively part of the trans case, to avoid many issues you do need to find the complete trans and OD unit to replace the original trans.

While the R9 would be more appropriate year wise, hard parts for those are starting to be hard to come by and the units are somewhat temperamental compared to the R11. The R9 electrical components -- specifically the dual relay box and solenoid -- need to be present and in good order to make those units function. Because they are specific to the unit and other items cannot substitute, they are also starting to be hard to come by and expensive.

Aside from mechanical aspect, another advantage to the R11 is the electrical components are being repro'd. Additionally, If you did not want to spend the money on a repro part for an authentic look, except for the solenoid the rest be worked around with modern components or even eliminated and the unit controlled manually as the other poster on the forum is doing with the R11 in his 39..

There should not be too big a problem finding the R11 unit. IIRC, there was one on ebay not too long ago which would have been appropriate. You do need the 48-50 units for the easiest conversion. 51 on is slightly different.

Agreed with everything HH says, and it sounds like you a member of The Church of the Holy Overdrive. We meet on Sundays on the Interstate, you will recognize us by the lack of eyes glued to the rear view mirror.

It often becomes a matter of originality choice and what you find available. I can supply R6, R9, and early R11 at your choice - I am in Dallas, TX. The crossmember supports are pretty much all the same, shorten the driveshaft and you are pretty much good to go, installation wise. The forum members are here to assist and guide in your restoration efforts. Again, welcome.

DAF

Another option is the gear vendors unit. They have a compact model (not sure the model number) that will handle the torque of the Packard six or eight, and they have several customers who have fit them successfully to pre-war juniors. It is on my long-term list - I get tired of topping out at 50.

Off-topic, but is there an aftermarket source or someone reproducing the Warn overdrives for the Willys with Dana 18 transfer cases? I have a 1953 Willys pickup waiting for me at home; it will be restored after I am out of the navy.

This is all fascinating to me as I used to drive my 1940 110 at highway speeds without overdrive and even drove it from Bellevue, WA to San Jose, CA following the family in a more modern car when I moved back to California in early 1972. I would have preferred the lower revs with OD and finally installed a unit but never drove the car with it connected and working. I had the driveshaft shortened by a local shop that specialized in driveshafts.

That said, I'm not sure if it applies to 1939 but on the later cars the models with factory OD had a different ratio rear end too as a little lower one was possible with OD for better off-the-line acceleration rather than the "compromise" ratio used without OD to try to keep the high-end revs down to a more reasonable level.

Incidentally, I have R6 and R9 kick-down switches should you need one.

G'day Ken(Ken_Parkman) and Doug,
to PackardInfo.

While you're getting the '39 Six Business Coupe bolted back together and OD equipped for highway cruising I invite you to include it in the Packard Owner's Registry here on PackardInfo.

Thanks for the information and welcome everyone!

Yep I am a big convert to the OD religion. Around here the highway speed is 75 mph, and the Rambler would spin 3500 to stay with traffic, and I'm not doing that. Moved where you pretty much have to drive the highway to get anywhere and stopped driving it - no fun to be in the slow lane and have your teeth clenched at the rpm and have the old lady in the Subaru blow past you. Now with the 5 speed you can drive it anywhere in reasonable comfort, milage is way up, overheating problems are gone, and it's faster at the track. Better in just about every way.

Not that we want to drive the Packard at 75, but maybe 60 on a secondary road. Time will tell.

Ken P (weird talking to myself) Advance adapters bought the old Warn IP and are making them now. The Willys suppliers have them for sale, and a big name in the OD world is Herm:

http://hermtheoverdriveguy.com

He seems to know a lot about them, sells a version for almost anything, and also has BW OD parts.

DAF - yes we would be interested, although shipping to Canada would be a problem. I'll PM you to talk.

It's my dad's car, but I'll see what he says about adding it to the registry.

Thanks again everyone.

Dave (32Model901) installed a gear vendor's unit in his '32 901. You can see his post here to see what that might entail.

I wish you father the best on his "Kit Car" as that is how I bought my '32 sedan. The owner had started on the restoration of the car that the family had had since the early 1950's. They let is decay when he started on it. He was doing a frame off and had started putting things back together. Everything was scattered in a big shop with other car parts and mixed up with no sense of keeping related things together. I boxed everything up, trying to make sure I grabbed everything that looked like it belonged (I did end up with some old Ford parts that I later returned).

When I moved it the body was somewhat bolted to the frame. We filled the inside of the car with stuff and towed it home on a trailer with a pickup whose bed was completely full. In addition, there was another pickup with a full bed of stuff. It has be fun and I'll admit that it has also been a challenge as I have never worked on a car this old or a Packard in the past. I'm not sure what I would have done without all of the fantastic help I've received from the site.

Right now I'm almost done with the last major piece to complete is the interior. Who knows, I may be able to put the old seats in it and take it for a drive this year when I get the mechanical/electrical stuff finished.

I just came across this somewhat blurry photo of the R6 from my first Packard, a 1939 Six Touring Sedan. This was taken in 1969 when I was a 17-year old high school senior working on the car. I had forgotten that my '39 had overdrive until I saw one of these early photos recently but didn't realize that I had one of just the transmission until yesterday. Although I did a lot of work on the car, I drove it only a few times before the work started, then only around the yard after that so never used the OD.

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Ken_Parkman, thanks for the information. Funny, I didn't even notice how similar our names were.

My first old car was a rusted out Willys Wagon with a Chevy 265 V8, including camel hump heads. The wagon is long since trashed, but in a few years, I intend to put that V8 into a Willys pickup with a T90, Dana 18, and Warn overdrive. With the 5.13 or whatever the axle ratio is, OD makes the highway a lot more pleasurable. Truck will be stock other than the engine and overdrive. Willys did offer factory conversions to Ford or Chevy V8s, so it is period correct.

Your discussion of swapping transmissions has me thinking - I hadn't even considered a transmission swap. My second gear is rough, so maybe I'll look into a whole new transmission instead...

Always something to think about.