Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

G'day Fellas, I've sprung a leak in the Patrician's pressure hose so I'm going to renew the lot. My question relates to the two small hoses from the control valve to the ram. According to the parts book there is a long one and a short one, but both mine are the same length at about 17.25". Is someone able to tell me what the correct lengths are? The reason for being fussy is that both are showing considerable wear from rubbing on something, or each other, which could be because of incorrect length. I have to get back under to closely examine the car's underbody so see if there are any obvious wear spots and hope to do that tomorrow. I'm getting new hoses made up by a hydraulic hose specialist and he thought that these hoses would go down from the control valve to the ram, but mine went up and across. The diagram in the parts book indicates that up is correct. Any advice regarding this would also be greatly appreciated. Regards, John

I just had a local hydraulic shop make up a set of new Bendix short hoses for me. Unfortunately I didn't measure the old ones, but assume the new ones were made to match the original lengths. They are 11-1/2 and 10-1/4 inches overall.

I took this picture a while back to show the location of the driver's side engine block cooling jacket drain. In it perhaps you can make out the routing of one of the short hoses - though I can't say for certain the routing is correct.

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G'day John, the attached photos of the original ones from my 400 confirm Owens measurements. You're welcome to drop by and borrow them for a sample if you wish...
Warren

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Seeing the Bendix linkage mounted power steering cylinder recalled an incident with the 56 Executive 4 door I drove to high school in 1962. A worn bushing or poor repair pointed the hoses about 45 deg up. The return hose was constantly hitting the frame and I was constantly replacing it. This particular incident occurred as I was traveling East on the 10 fwy intending to exit Baldwin Av. I entered the ramp beside a yellow 57 Chevy 2 door HT driven by a man in a suit. His passenger window was down. As I turned, the hose let go and shot a finger size, red, stream directly through the open window dead center on the headliner. I continued departing the fwy and he continued East. We didn't stop to discuss it, although, I suspect nether one of us has forgotten it. The same car taught me about 1 speed push button transmissions and why there is no manual control for the load levelers.
I still miss it, Tom

Thanks for the advice OD & Warren. Problem's now pretty much under control and the job should be completed tomorrow. But first an apology for misleading y'all. I misread my writing and didn't check my initial post properly - it should have said that my ram hoses were 11.25" long, not 17.25". Anyway, the cause of the wear was from rubbing on each other and on the steering column. I think that because one hose is too long it was resting on top of the other rather than both nesting together. Also, I might have made the situation worse when last year I removed the ram to fit a seal kit and could have allowed the hoses to sit too high when refitted.

Two new hoses have been made to OD's spec's, and fitted, and tomorrow I'll fit the new pump hoses. I don't know about over there but here in good old Oz it's a bloody expensive business. Four new hoses, fittings and clamps cost $420, so I'm feeling a little fragile at the moment. Hope I haven't been skun! The new hose supplier said that he was certain the old hoses would have been factory originals which suggests the factory either fitted two long ones, rather than one long and one short, or factory spares have been retro fitted. In any event, if they were the originals they've lasted a hell of a long time. Cheers, John

Am curious if the place supplied just one long pressure hose from pump or were they able to duplicate the restriction in the metal fitting where the two hoses join?

I've been curious about why the restriction is there or if it is really needed. Some places here use completely different fittings than Packard did so obviously it wouldn't be the same size -- if it is still present at all -- but the car still steers OK. I have also seen just one single hose length slightly smaller than the return hose. Maybe restriction was some kind of noise reduction?? Other than Packard mentioning it in a couple of places, it's purpose is not very well detailed.

you could have gotten hoses from Max Merrit WAY cheaper then that.

http://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb.dll?parta~dyndetail~Z5Z5Z50000022e~Z5Z5Z5AAAUZ~P50.00~~~~S3VZ0MNNQM20413915880d~Z5Z5Z5~Z5Z5Z50000022E#

G'day Men, Firstly a correction. The hose was rubbing on the torsion bar, not the steering column. Yes, MM prices would have been cheaper but when you factor in shipping costs and the exchange rate, the cost would probably have been similar, and I only had to wait a couple of days. You may not know that shipping from the US to Australia has become enormously expensive in recent years. For example, that diff pinion yoke I bought a couple of months ago cost around $145 all up, nearly half of which was for shipping, and it took 3 weeks to get here. To be honest, these days I try to exhaust all other possible avenues of purchase before going to the US, but having an American car usually means I'm locked in to the US. I hope I'm generating some sympathy for your poor downunder cousins here. Cheers, John

JP,

this is how my monroe was done for anyone down there with a monroe.

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Sorry Howard, I meant to reply to your query about the pressure hose but got involved with something else and forgot. The new pressure hose does have the restrictor fitted and I actually asked why is it needed - was it to reduce pressure? The answer I was given is that pressure remains the same either side of the restrictor. However, what it does do is reduce flow volume which, if left unaltered, will result in steering so light that it would be almost uncontrollable. I can't verify this but the fella who told me was an older hydraulic serviceman who seemed to know what he was talking about. He was the one who sent me away to recheck why the ram hoses had worn the way they had. Hope this sheds some light on the subject and sorry once again for taking so long to reply. Cheers, John