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

Hello! Some time ago I became an owner of a '48 Custom through this website. It took a while before the car arrived here but now I have it in my hands. The car is pretty much what I expected but it does have plenty for me to work with.

The brakes were in quite scary condition but I swapped a new master cylinder and now they are pretty normal. A lot of small parts have gone missing but currently that isn't big issue.

The worst problem and probably the hardest to fix is the transmission. It works pretty normally but the second gear sounds really terrible. Besides the awful rattling noise the forward pushing force seems to be a bit jerky. I guess the gears have taken damage and even teeth might be missing.

It could also be some serious shifting mechanism problem but gear damage is still my guess.

Any ideas? Should I try to find decent spare gears and rebuild the transmission or find similar transmission and swap it?

I studied the service manual and rebuilding seems to be fairly simple to do but I would need to change nearly everything if I want to keep gear pairs together. A complete OD transmission shouldn't be very hard to find but I think that loose transmissions cannot be found from Finland.

Hopefully it could be as easy as linkage adjustment, or could be as bad as shredded gears. Before removing transmission, remove the floor inspection plate and look into the top of the transmission - remove the top plate. The most worrysome point for inspection is the pressed on ring at the forward end of the mainshaft. These are known to loosen up, and if it lets loose, you will have a destroyed transmission. If you like and are experienced with transmissions, there is nothing particularly difficult about rebuilding this one, otherwise you will have to find an experienced person to help you. Most parts are available, though some of the overdrive stuff can get pricey on a part by part basis, such as the synchros and the overdrive mainshaft bearing. There is good information on this site, and plenty of experienced guys to armchair quarterback this.

Let us know how we can help, worst case scenario I can sell you a rebuilt ready to install overdrive gearbox, but I doubt you'd like the fedex cost....

Thanks. I'll try to check what the inside parts look like. I didn't even realize that I have inspection plate inside the car...

I did test drive yesterday and noticed another gearbox related issue. If I pull lout the lock out switch the gearbox becomes a lot more noisy. I guess the noise comes from the engine braking through the gearbox. With the lock out pulled it was noisy with the 1st and 3rd gear too. This doesn't promise very good thing for the condition of the other gears too.

Actually getting the box from TX migth be actually pretty cheap. My car was shipped from Houston to Finland by Finnish operated company that provides also other shipping services. The shipping costs are calculated by the packages outer dimensions so heavy weight isn't an issue.

I have been terribly busy with my work, short summer vacation and fixing my Packard. Today I had enough time and courage to check the gearbox. I took the top cover away and thought that I had found the reason for the noises. The 2/3 gear shifting fork had really worn "contact pads". There was a lot of metal missing from the places that are contacting the "dog clutches" when 3rd gear is engaged. Still I couldn't figure out what might be causing the noise.

I rotated the shafts and found the real reason. The upper gear of the 2nd gear was missing half of one tooth. I guess I will need new gearbox.

One spare gear might be cheap way to solve the problem as the other gears were still quite ok. It still requires a lot of work and the end results won't be a very reliable gearbox.

I took photos of the problems but forgot them in workshop's camera. I'll try to upload them in tomorrow.

Before solving the annoying noise I have done other things with the car.

I got most of the lights operational and took the car to registration inspection. Nasty inspection guy could have found really long list of things to fix but my friendly inspection guy only asked me to fix front right brake. When brake pedal was pushed toward the floor the right front wheel suddenly locked. The total brake effect before that was also quite weak.

I suspected that brake shoe was misaligned and acted a bit weirdly. After dis-assembly I found that brake hose was almost completely blocked and second brake piston was stuck. I took the brake cylinder apart and cleaned the parts. Dust boots were in bad condition but I put the cylinder back together with old parts.

The car came with one new uninstalled brake hose that was quite useful. At this point I was quite sure that I needed to maintain the left front brake too and after test run this became clear.

The left one had newer brake cylinder (again with a stuck piston) but it had newish brake hose. This time the dust boots were ok. Now the brakes are pretty good but I guess the horribly old brake fluid has probably ruined the rear brakes too.

I didn't have suitable tool to pull away the rear drums so I'll handle the rear brakes later on. I did order new rubbers from eBay (LNF Brakes).

I noticed that my car has had Electromatic clutch but almost everything has been removed. Only push button, red pedal and complex accelerator linkage are still there. I can live without it but I guess I should remove the last of the parts from the car. I have fog lights but the switch is missing from the dashboard. The chromed button is there but without a switch.

Btw. I had really short summer vacation in UK where I visited really awesome Goodwood Festival of Speed. There wasn't any Packards but instead there was an incredible display of straight eight power. Even one Bugatti T41 Royale was there but unfortunately they didn't start it. It was my second but not last time there.

This was a long post but I had a long brake...

Here are pictures of the problems.

[img width="500"]http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qF4VoDWwjho/Ue5cNGOfoMI/AAAAAAAACpU/A_izIC_Y1cY/w958-h433-no/Fork_ends_1.jpg[/img]

[img width="500"]http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H1PEFZMM-Eg/Ue5cNPQs-tI/AAAAAAAACpQ/-ZcgM4n0xVw/w778-h519-no/Broken_tooth_1.jpg[/img]

Is this kind of wear normal for the shifter forks? I have no idea what is the mileage of my car but I suspect that is a lot.

Oh, she looks tired. That sort of wear on the forks usually only comes at high mileage.

I would guess that if you grabbed the gear just rearward of the sychronizer you will find that it will wobble on its shaft--that signifies that that double-row bearing that supports it has lost its preload. That will make for jumping out of gear and various noises (even forgetting the broken tooth).


In Finland your best bet will be to source another known good unit as there are so many pieces that may need replacing.

I did try to shake the gears and noticed that the gears did wobble a bit. I don't know how tight they are in new condition but I guess new bearings should be a lot tighter.

I remembered that my friend took apart some "forest find Packard" years ago. He did save the engine for some hot rod purpose but I don't remember what happened to the transmission. Packards in Finland usually didn't die because of high mileage so something from the drivetrain might be salvageable even with decades in the forest.

flackmaster said something about a rebuilt gearbox. I'll have ask from him.

Today I noticed that the engine doesn't idle as nicely as it did when I picked it up. I already cleaned the fuel pump but didn't yet touch the carburetor. Finnish gasoline might have washed something into a wrong place.

I noticed that timing light doesn't give very stable flashing so I checked the ignition system. All spark plugs were wrong type (seven Y-8 Champions and one UY-6) and gaps were too large. I cleaned the plugs and the distributor cap and got the engine to idle a bit better.

But inside the distributor I noticed another problem. The distributor shaft seems to have quite big amount of play. I could open breaker points by shaking the shaft.

The parts list shows that the distributor has two bushings inside that could be changed (and they seem to be available). Are those common parts to wear with a high mileage car?

Those bushings can be worn even on a relatively low mileage car if the grease cup was not turned on a regular basis. Most owners had no idea they were there, so they were quite ignored after the dealers closed.

Good point Ross. A couple of weeks ago I found the one on my '51. I've made it a practice to put a few drops of oil in every oil cup on both cars at the firt of each month. At the beginning of July I decided that there had to be something on the '51s distributor so i poked around and found this weird "bottlecap" thing. I unscewed it and found that it was about half full of grease. Cleaned that out, checked the Lubrication Section of the FSM about what should be used then filled it up and reinstalled. Needless to say, I've added a twist to that to monthly oilings.

Free Distributor Bushings with any Transmission purchase! !!