Hi All, just got off the phone with Verne Tomlinson at Hilborn about the
fuel pump failure that trailered my Ardun at the April 1 Maxton meet.
Verne said it was a manufacturing error "possibly" compounded by not
squirting enough engine oil in it on assembly before startup. The whole
pump was replaced except the body, and Hilborn covered it all but a
"tiny little" participation by your reporter. Verne said he ran the
repaired pump for an hour on his test rig and it is now slick as a
whistle.
But the whole world already knows Hilborn is a class outfit.
Used the opportunity with the front sheet metal off the car to go ahead
and convert the coolant circulation system from the belt-driven Ford
pumps to a 12V 15.7 gpm marine pump in the feed line from the rear tank
to the engine, thus deleting the belt drive. To retain the Ford rubber
engine mounts (which I prefer to putting the chassis flexing stresses
into the power unit with rigid mounts) I made dummy pumps by cutting the
bearing snouts off a pair of old Ford pumps, and plugging the seal holes
with 1-7/16 freeze plugs with Blue Loctite. So the coolant comes to the
dummy pumps under pressure now, and on up into the block as before.
So, got all this in there now, full of coolant, and, no drips at this
time. This is a great game, always something to do!
Cheers from ArdunBill in the Great Dismal Swamp, Chesapeake, VA
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