Front Dress - What a mess!

[Chris Duncan]

If anyone needs a short, regular rotation Ford water pump I have one collecting dust, brand new never had coolant in it.

 

[mike_starling]

Had to make mine

Ron,

I'm using the short pump. Because the engine is built on a race block it has an external oil pump and uses serpentine (flat) belts. Guess where that left me ... absolutely nothing could be bought. So I made the entire front end setup. Bought 7075 plate and bar on e-bay and milled and turned all of the parts including two idlers. We'll see how this works when it's fired someday ;>)

http://www.mstarling.com/Album/front_equip_S4_2vs.jpg

 

[Ron Earp]

Hey Mike, that looks really nice! I'm sure it willl work well. How is the rest of the car coming along? I hope you are making some progress and will get her on the road.

I ended up turning down a spacer for mine - about 0.590" to get it all lined up right, but, making the spacer was simple and far less time consuming than doing a new crank and water pump pulley. There are so many variations of front cover, pump, damper, and pulley sets for a SB Ford it isn't even funny. That is one area that I think the SB Chevy motor had a distinct advantage - front dress. I've not worked on a lot of SB Chevys but the few I have worked on seemed to be the same, although spread apart in years and application. Heck, the SB Ford has changes in mid-year for the same application sometimes.

There definitely is a market for someone to produce a timing cover, with provision for fuel pump, that uses a reverse rotation pump, short style, and couple it with a off the shelf pulley set and spacer with a commonly available alternator and sell it as a set. I don't know how many times I've played this game with a SB Ford, this is just the first time with a old style cover.

Glad to hear you are back at it!

Ron

 

[Jac Mac]

I hesitate to suggest this as most of you guys are in the Nth Hemisphere, but when doing cooling systems for jet boats where the seats were hard against the front of the motor, we would cut a piece of 3/8" alloy to the front cover shape (early cover w/o tin plate) then machine a circle to accomodate a Aust Holden 202 6cyl water pump which made the length about 1.5" shorter. I have also used this setup on Rover V8 etc in a road going situation .

Im sure there must be a US/UK 6cyl inline that could be made to do the same job. Just find a reasonably priced one & go for it. ( After all I once fixed a $$$$$ Ferrari water pump with a 'David Brown' tractor $5.00 water pump seal.-- No truth in the story that the Farmer used the Ferrari to plough the fields after that! )

Jac Mac

 

[Sandy]

Ron -

Glad you got it sorted out. A lot of odd combinations to get the pulleys right on the SBF as I found out as well.

I was looking at one set I used before getting a Racemate on the Mustang, and the bottom pulley is almost flat (No dish offset out) to the balancer (4 bolt flat face type with regular length pump) which looked much different they the sets you show in the pix's, as yours had a deep dish to the belt groves.

After all this I hope you have less then 1.5" to the front of the block

Sandy

 

[Ron Earp]

After all this I hope you have less then 1.5" to the front of the block

Sandy

Overall, it seems bad since I posted everything I went through, but the new time cost to me wasn't that much with respect to pulleys. Couple hours here and there, and few minutes on the phone looking for stuff.

In the end the total spent is about - $110 for alternator, $130 for water pump, $169 for pulley set, belt, and some bolts, probably about $425. If I'd had some extra money I'd done the Racemate thing for sure, but it was more than twice as much. However, you'd have a much better setup in the end, that is for sure! I still think there is some money to be made with the cover, pump, pulley deal sold as a set.

I think everyone that has done the GT40 thing has gone through this as evidenced by the threads in various places on the forum. Even that "kit" that RF had didn't fit the parts I had and I ended up turning down some of the spacers to make them fit. And I see there is a question on that now in the RF forum.

 

[Doug S.]

I know this is an old thread, but I was messing about a bit on the WWW and ran across this company, which claims to make pretty complete front dress systems for long or short pump SBF motors with just an alternator, an alternator and an A/C compressor, an alternator and a power steering pump, or an alternator and power steering pump and A/C compressor. The ones for A/C are kind of costly, but the price does include an ultra small polished Sanden A/C compressor with hard lines. Here's a link in case anyone else runs up against this problem: Small Block Ford Kits

Doug

 

[Ron Earp]

Here is the rub though, their quote:

"Short waterpump (SFM) kits are designed to work on Ford 289/302(5.0)/351 engines using the FRPP waterpump and timing cover (part# M-8501-A50), and FRPP balancer (part# M-6316-K351 or M-6316-M50). Works with electric fuel pump only."

So, if you want to use a short water pump and use the cover with a mechnical fuel pump, as I did, you'll be machining a spacer for yourself.

I think.

Ron

 

[Doug S.]

OOPS--in my enthusiasm to share this source, I guess I forgot about that one "little" complication. I'm sure you are right about the electric fuel pump issue, Ron. For someone like me, who is lacking in fabrication skills, the complete nature of this system would be a big draw.

I guess the reason the site interested me was b/c of the issue of A/C--I wonder if it would be a good way to get the A/C compressor into the small engine bay of these 40 replicas. I know I'll need A/C in mine (when that glorious day comes!). I've not heard of many of us using power steering.

Doug

 

[Pedro]

Couldn’t find what I needed so I made my own, not recommended, too much of a hassle and expensive.

 

[Ron Earp]

Look like yet another Ford front cover - not sure I've seen that one before, or at least it looks different in that picture.

 

[Jac Mac]

Couldn’t find what I needed so I made my own, not recommended, too much of a hassle and expensive.

That cover is from an early 221/260/289 with provision for the oil filler tube. The pump also ran 'wet' against the timing cover, was subject to corrosion on high mileage engines.

I have mentioned the cover available from Ford SVO with provision for mechanical fuel pump on left or right sides before but cannot remember where my catalog is with p/n etc if it is still available. The unused fuel pump mount on eitherside could serve as a mount for A/C or drysump pump .

Jac Mac

 

[Peter Delaney]

Just a quick word of warning on using the unused fuel pump mount to serve as a mount for A/C - I used the "standard front dress for v-belts from RF" & it didn't take long for the cover to crack.

My new engine builder made up some extra bracketry to take the "twisting load" off the cover & all looks ok now.

Those die-cast things don't take load (other than compression) too well.

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[Jac Mac]

The De Tomaso Mangusta ran an accessory shaft along the inboard side of the RH rocker cover with the A/C, Alt, etc mounted at the rear, not the best place for a 40 with a bunch of bananas @ the rear, but the idea may work in in other areas, wont concern me to much, A/C not on my list of must have's.

Jac Mac

 

[Pedro]

The picture on my last post shows my attempt to replicate the front of the 289 engine as used on the gt40’s in the early sixties, I have also made the alternator bracket and a friend made the alternator pulley, no ac provision on the MKI race cars that I know of but I could be wrong.

 

[Rich A]

Here's another company that might be able to help with the pulley problem.

::: Z O O P S Products, Inc. :::