Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Hi, Stuart Blond gave me your details. I am trying to find fingers for the above. Can you please tell me if you have any available.
Kind regards,
Olivia Northcott
Northcott Autos, New Zealand.

Thread split and moved.

NorthCot. I have no idea what u are talking about. Fingers for WHAT above????

Is he talking about the above door flappers? or the PB shifter fingers? Perhaps fingers is Kiwi slang for something.

I'm just guessing that the topic is the beryllium/copper fingers in the push-button shift motor assembly. They've been reproduced by several different makers over the years, but the real expert and source for work on these units is a regular correspondent here, they don't call him "Mr. Pushbutton" for nothing.

But if the poster meant some other part, I'm at a loss.

I make the fingers for the 1956 Packard electric shifters, I have sold them outright, but I prefer to go through the whole shifter device on my bench, part of what I do to every unit includes new fingers, which are just slightly larger in diameter and and have more spring tension than the OE fingers. I rewire the motor on every unit now, and completely disassemble, clean and relubricate the gearing, and often these days I have to replace the thrust bearing in the gearing set-up, the balls are becoming frozen in the bronze carrier on some units. The motor needs relubrication, I do that while it is totally apart.
There is some slight modification to the plastic finger bridge necessary to install the fingers I make, and the reliability of the device is dependent on the integrity of the soldering of the fingers into the bridge, I'm quite fussy about that, but knowing what a miserable location these things go into, I only want you doing it once. The reliability of the car depends on all of these items being right.

Mr. P.B

#1 what do you charge?

#2 Do you buy core steering shafts/wheels to have units
ready?

AL-I go by the hour, the average unit these days is running about $400 FOB Farmington Hills, that is all I described above plus modifying the contact segement with an insulating piece I epoxy into the gap and re-machine to the radius of the original segement, that makes certain that the fingers don't go down into any slot that can develop in the original contact segements and temp the fingers to want to bend, just one smooth radius all the way around.
If there are big problems with the contact segment harness that will cost more, I straighten out any problems that are lurking there, and fix a lot of bad blue crimp connector monkey work.
I finally have cores to rebuild, always looking for more.
I don't do much with the consoles (the pushbutton assemblies on the steering column) unless the customer has a specific problem with that component, but that is the rare circumstance, the problem is always in the actuator, with the fingers, and that is where I come in. I did do some repairs for a customer last February on his console assembly, some wires had melted and some male connectors were mangled enough to warrent replacement. I actually like to get as much of the system as I can so that I can do the final test on my board using the customer's parts as a system, as they will be used in the car.
Here is a test I did on Owen Dyneto's unit I serviced last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB0nZG4Xd0

There have been some complaints of the contact "leafs" breaking on those switch consoles, and I have a pretty good idea of how to fix that, but have not had a customer with the need or desire yet. I'm pretty busy keeping these actuators going through the shop to work on that.

G'day Olivia,
to PackardInfo, I googled Northcott Auto in NZ and found this reference. Looks like you're repairing someone else's Packard? Have you looked for help closer to home in the form of members of the South Pacific Packard Club of New Zealand? While saying that, the acknowledged expert in pushbutton repairs is our own Mr PB.