Projects 1956 packard pretty durable car

Yup that servo apparently dies without warning. Avoid.

 

My dad had a 56 Carribean soft top, drove Packards till 58 when he switched to lincoln. We lived in rural Ohio & he would drive me to school on his way to work. That car was A W E S O M E. Two 4's , 372 c. i.
& went like a bat outa >>>>. Could tell lots of Packard tales, but i type 4 crap & it'd take too many words. "Ask the man who owns one" !

 

These cars have the least conveniently located master cylinder I've ever dealt with. Mine had the factory power brake setup on it yet and it worked amazingly well, very little effort required to send you through the windshield, but really hard to access the cover even to check the level.

 

Nothing wrong with a treadle-vac system. All the part's are available, easy to rebuild, and work great.

 

Well, I guess I need to re-read up on treadle vac and "larn sumpin" more about them than my old opinions. Just to know.

 

Back before we where married Debbie and I drove a 40 Packard from Pocahontas all the wat to Rockford ill. It wanted to overheat in St Louis. Just had water in the radiator. I drained it and refilled it with antifreeze and it never heated up again. It was a comfortable ride. the flathead six and three on the tree worked flawlessly. a few years later A worthless teen was hiding in the car smoking weed and caught the interior on fire and it burnt to the ground.

 

Back about 1959-60 there was an older gentleman that had a black 57-58 Packard. He ran at Madera, Half Moon Bay, Fremont etc in A/SA as I recall and was tough to beat!! I ran him quite a few times in my 57 Pontiac.

 

I've rebuilt both types on 7 different cars not a single problem

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Sell it to Jim!! I've never seen that model Packard with a straight axle!

 

Most of them got dumped because they were expensive to work on or get parts for, the Ultramatic could be a tipping point for many. Not a bad transmission as far as generic rebuilds go. I recall my uncle driving one around 1962, got it cheap from a disgusted owner.

 

Well, I read up on treadle vac and it is a good system with a couple of weak points; the anodized lining of the master cylinder and the propensity to leak fluid internally without due maintenance... it must be checked every couple of years and the fluid changed. Now... imagine leaving one sit for fifty years... it's gonna fail, regardless. Rebuild it asap and schedule another one two years later.

 

I've always had a soft spot for Packards ever since I was at a family picnic in about 56 or 57 and a new jet black Caribbean convertible with a red interior cruised though the park with the top down. I was nine or ten years old and the vision of that car has stuck with me ever since.
As for that sedan in question it looks too straight and solid to butcher for the parts. Even if it doesn't get full resto it deserves to be brought up to snuff mechanically and get driven some.

 

Thank you guys for the good words and memories that's what this hobby is about I always live by if a car survived for 65 years without being crushed and is a survivor its a good candidate for making it a driver or pass it on to someone that wants a reasonable driver.

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Got any pics of the whole car?

 

Other than the taillights, and even those are something "kemp" builders use, what would be the selling point of any of the rest, except to somebody restoring them? I ask, because it seems counter intuitive to destroy an intact (more or less) low production car just to sell it piece by piece (even then, it may take months if not years to find buyers for all of it before the trigger gets pulled on scrapping the rest....)

 

I think I see a pushbutton shifter pod. Super rare option! Only offered a few months. There is a servo motor on the tranny. The way the story goes is that, if you parked on a steep hill and put it in park the motor didn't have enough power to take it out of park and blow a fuse.
Also the load leveling is a blast. Set on the trunk and the car levels itself.

 

They made standard transmissions like everyone else..........

 

Packard s were good in the day - Studebaker parted ways just like GM did to the Oldsmobile and Pontiac lines.........

 

Will make a nice cruiser. Too nice to part out.

 

Lady in our neighborhood drove a 55 or 56 clipper 2 door hardtop when I was growing up , tri tone two blues and a white, I remember the name a clipper constellation. It Was used in the 80s for the movie dirty dancing as a set car while they filmed at mountain lake here in VA . I loved the dash in that car !

 

Here is some better pictures reason its setting up in the rear is the auto level is stuck in up position.

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My old boss had a two story barn full of Packards. He even had a '58 four foor with a Paxton Supercharger. He refused to sell me the Carribean convertible.They were all filled with raccoon droppings. It is a rare sight when these cars are driven.

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She's a beaut!

(can you hold your phone sideways when you take pictures, so the whole car fits in the picture?)

 

Might be worthless info but if anybody has a 56 packard and need brake hoses the rear hose is a 69 ford half ton and the front hoses are a 59 edsel both sets available locally. If you need part # s let me know.

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that leveling suspension may be fun it was quite the engineering feat at the time.

 

That's one kick-ass engine turned dash.

 

No such thing as worthless information

 

Here is the bendex tredel vac apart its a little easier to build than the delco moraine.

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My bench looked like that last week, easy to do and work's great. ( 56 Old's 88 )

 

We are custodians of arcane knowledge... 500 years ago we'd have been either burned as witches or celebrated as wizards