Last night I braved dipping into the Riley's
engine compartment to extract the leaky water pump.
With the Palo Alto meet only 9 days off I compiled a
mental list of TTD (things to do) for both the Riley &
the Sprite, with H2o pump at the top of the list.
First trouble was just getting at it. The Riley
has a "butterfly" style opening bonnet(s), which look
very classic, but makes engine work akin to retrieving a
letter after you've tossed it into the mailbox.
Nevertheless I attacked it, and succeeded in removing
various preheater tubes, sliding bypass thermostats,
boom vangs, velmar articulators, etc, before running
out of light, time, interest. Two things I did note
with a bit of concern tho, were a buildup inside the
thermostat housing that reminded me of some undersea
growth you'd find on a coral reef, and a very out of
place looking fitting jutting off of the top tube that
connects the thermo housing to the pump itself. On
closer inspection it was determined that this was added
by a POWAW (previous owner wielding a welder), looks
like it used to be part of a grease gun, and it
disappears into the firewall, presumably to a heater
box. It was only much later on that I began to wonder
where and how the PO had tied in the return hose.
Hmmmmm.
I'll keep you posted of the progress-
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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