Last year on her birthday we were watching shingles fly off the house, catching water in pans in the attic, putting tarp on the roof and praying the house would still be standing when hurricane Gustav passed. This year was a lot better. We had a family & friends gathering and sang “Happy Birthday” to Barbara.
I called Stef’s and talked to them about the new oil pump that did not fit. But that can be fixed very easy. The major problem with the pump is it catches in the same spot about every 5-7 revolutions. It is a Melling HV oil pump, so I called Melling and they recommended I send it back. I also talked to them about the old oil pump, that only has less than 25 runs on it, and they said to inspect the internals and if it is OK and operates smoothly, use it. That is what I am doing.
I have been using Melling oil pumps for well over 30 years and never had a problem (that I did not cause myself). We think the problem with this one occurred when the pickup tube was welded to the body of the pump.
Leo “Red” Rogers came over this morning and we put the engine back into the car. I dropped the distributor while the engine was still on the engine stand, before the pan was installed. I discovered the old shaft that connects the distributor to the oil pump was not straight. The run-out on the oil pump shaft (old pump) was less than .001″ but when the shaft was installed, it wobbled all over the place. The new shaft is very straight and gave no problem during installation. It took Red and me about 2 1/2 hours to put the engine in.
I called and talked to Coan Transmissions & Converters about my torque converter. My 90 day warranty is up shortly. They said not to worry about it. Get some good data from my replay tach and weather station on my next runs and send it to them and they will fix the converter to match my needs. They were very understanding.