ford short water pump

[jackjohn]

hey everybody, looked thru the arciveswith no luck, ive been told or read somewhere that ford did make a short waterpump for 302 mustang, in the mid 80's. any info would help? my first ford powered rod, i could use the extra room.

thanks in advance, john

 

[donsrods]

John, I recently put a short water pump setup on my 331 sbf in my 27. It was not easy finding the parts to do it because Ford Racing discontinued some of the parts like the pulleys to make it work. It became a real pain and I spent a lot of time on the phone, researching options. Here is a thread I did on it on another forum:

http://clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43331&highlight=short+water+pump+ford

Now, once I buttoned it up I had a problem. The spacer I reworked to fit let the bottom pulley wobble. So I found that Ford Racing made spacers to work with the Ford Racing damper and I bought one, however, the spacer would fit into the damper but not my Zoops pulley. I had a machine shop open up the hole in the pulley so it would register on the spacer.

Evan at that, the pulley on the crank was 3/16 off from the pulley on the water pump from lining up, so I used a puller to move the plate on the water pump out 3/16 of an inch on the shaft. I never thought I would get everything to line up, but finally it did and I was home free.........well, not exactly free, I had about $ 1,000.00 in everything when I was done.

An alternative is the Snow White kit, and in hindsight I should have gone that route, it would be cheaper, I think. If you read the link I gave you it cites part numbers and prices. Wish I had better info to give you, but with Ford Racing discontinuing some of the parts it makes it tough.

Don

Here is what it ends up looking like. It did give me 1.5 inches more room.

 

[jackjohn]

shortie w p

thanks don, i dont want to spend that much, so i guess ill move radiator forward some to make things fit. ill let you know how it works out.lol

john

 

[donsrods]

If you can do that it would be cheaper and better. That way you can replace the water pump with off the shelf stuff down the road sometime if you need a new one. Me, I'm not sure what I'll do years from now when mine goes bad.

I actually had just a stock setup on mine for the 7 years I drove it but it limited me to using only cheap, slimline electric fans because of having no room between the pulley and radiator. When I was rebuilding the car I wanted to use a good SPAL fan because sitting at lights in Florida in Summer can get very brutal. Part of what complicated my search was that I am using a 1990 Mustang roller cam block that was originally setup for serpentine belt and I wanted to convert to v belt...........so lots of changing to do, and Fords are tough anyways to get the right parts for.

I've even got my engine so far tunneled under the cowl that my valve covers won't come off without lifting up the body, and even that puts the engine tight against my new SPAL fan. D*** Fords are just so long.

Don