Overdrive Quandary

BigSky

I finally tested out the overdrive yesterday on the 54 Hornet & couldn’t get the kick down to work while driving it.  When I returned home I found that when I disconnected & re-connected the battery I would hear a click from down at the transmission area.  It did that clicking previously & would kill the battery overnight if left connected.  Since the relay in use has a fuse I could simply pull it & not get the drain on the battery but not would I have overdrive.  

Since the car has been changed to 12 volt I assumed that the current set up was done due to the now 12 volt system.  However a good friend’s father has been running the original 6v overdrive set up on 12v for decades without problem.  Thus, I’m trying to figure out 1) what the problem (s) may be as well as what it should be set up like?  Original or different than original & if so how?

Additionally I found a wire that’s part of the overdrive harness that goes to the relay, kick down switch & overdrive itself.  The wire isn’t connected to anything & I'm not sure what it should be connected to either.  I tried to take a picture below:

BigSky

Now I see why people put a switch under the dash to run their overdrive, no one knows how to fix these things.

ski4life65

BigSky said:

Now I see why people put a switch under the dash to run their overdrive, no one knows how to fix these things.

That's what I ended up doing on my 49.

50C8DAN

Do you have the OD wiring schematic?  That should tell you what wire goes to what.  I hooked mine back up after pulling the engine and trans years ago and never had any issues, it works fine, kick down and all.

lostmind

BigSky said:

Now I see why people put a switch under the dash to run their overdrive, no one knows how to fix these things.

There are hundreds running around with factory hook up for overdrive.
Lot's of guys know how to fix them.
All my Hudson's worked as designed.
There is a wall chart from Hudson that is easy to follow , if you don't skip 
a step you can repair it.

Toddh

agree with LostMind.  There’s only a few wires to trace out and there’s a schematic in the Mech Procedure manual.  The terminals on the relay, governor  switch and solenoid are marked

cheyenne7271

I drive my all original 50 Super 6 twice a week for a 75 mile round trip to work and back. Never had a problem.