Quote Originally Posted by rspears View Post
Don,
Did your water pump blow the gasket between the pump and the back cover? Reason I ask, mine did that, blowing out the gasket mid-way between the two thin head bolts at the bottom in the long span between pump to engine mounts. I bought new pump to plate and pump to engine gaskets to fix mine. Just wondering if there is some assembly problem at the factory??
Roger, that is exactly where mine blew. There are bolts all around the perimeter of the pump, holding it firmly to the timing cover, EXCEPT at the bottom. They depend on those two small thin-headed bolts that go in from the backside of the plate to hold that area. When I took the brand new pump off that had failed, I found those bolts were not torqued down. I should have checked them when I put the pump on, but didn't.

No one carries that football shaped gasket so I made one from gasket paper and glued the heck out of it, then torqued those two bolts down, as well as all the other bolts. It seems to be holding ok now, but then the other, more serious problem surfaced. Sometimes I REALLY hate cars.

We also saw a 59-ish Chevy sitting at a red light that a young girl had run into the back of. They were waiting for the cops. Bet $ 10 she was texting or on the phone.

There seemed to be less cars cruising around at night, but there were some real idiots out there. Two S-10 Chevys lined up at a red light on A1A and squared off. We were going the other way in the left lane and the one almost went sideways into us. He had to slam on the brakes and get into the center turning lane to avoid traffic stopped in front of him. There were lots of similar things going on, and I bet it ruins it for those of us who don't act like squirrels. The cops there were very forgiving this year, but if that keeps up they won't be that way in the future. All it takes is for one person to get hurt or killed.

Don