I use the melling H55 and HV55 pumps in my builds.....a very common oil pump...sold by various suppliers, they all seem to use the same housing, you can usually see the h55 cast right on the housing. my usual brand is the sealed power. this is what I got when I opened the box DAMN, so I had them send out an actual Mellings pump........guess what, same thing.....now I know that everybody uses their housings and just markets them under their own names, so I called Moroso......they assured me they were using a much stronger design, so I brought one of those in.....guess what...yep same housing....but there was no warning in the box......so I have 3 pumps all with the same housing. I finally was able to locate a mellings Mselect pump...this is what mellings is requireing for ANY type of high performance use ...manual transmission use.....marine...or ANYTHING with a solid motor mount. it seems they are snapping off at the bolt and falling into the pans...I talked to a friend in Texas today and he is recalling 50 motors he built , because he has had 3 pumps break...he saw no warnings in the oil pump boxes...he decided to bring the motors back and put the select pumps in on his own dime. you guys running these pumps in your hotrods and race cars better make sure which housing you have...they been out a while ..and everybody that uses the mellings style housing has the same problem here is the typical h55 housing next to a "select" housing Fred
VERY interesting.. I use the same pumps as you whenevr i build a sbc...never had a pump snap, but this is real good information to know.. Looks like i'll be buying the select pumps from now on. Thanks. Tony
when I was in school I worked at autozone, I had one guy come in all the time that used to order the "select" when he built motors....I guess now I know why.
wow , thanks for posting this , i have a clevite pump sitting on my workbench right now...it WAS going into a 283 what is the part number of the Mselect pump? who sells it/where can i get one? when did this problem start? i have another 283 i rebuilt about 6-7 years ago with a high volume pump...is that one ok?
The story I was told was that GM was behind the change.Melling is a supplier to GM and the aftermarket.GM made some changes to save a few ounces of weight and wanted their replacement pumps to look just like the OE unit.So Melling was forced by GM's clout to change the basic M-55 pump.... This pump is fine for your average mom and pops 4000 max rpm grocery getter.... But more than a few engines have been destroyed by useing these pumps in powerfull engines...... Especially if drag raced and launched hard....only takes a good tire shake or two and ...... well..... it gets ugly. The Aftermarket has been repackaging Melling Pumps sold under various other names for many years.....
I was reading abiout this on a Corvette forum I visited. It was one guys opinion that it's part of a conspiracy to eliminate pre '90 cars in teh name of the enviropnment. It was funny. Lower quality pumps however are not funny Although I'll gladly pay it, whats the cost difference between standard and Select? Also, is it just the HV pumps that changed, or is it the standard volume/stock replacment pumps too?
Recently, I picked up a couple 20-25 year old new Mellings sbc pumps from a guy at a swap meet that cleaned out the remaining stock from a machine shop that closed its doors. I just bought them because they were cheap--now I'm glad I did!
both standard and high volume are affected i also heard the GM story....and talking with them earlier in the week, they blamed it on an auto parts franchise who told the pump manufacture if they could bring the unit cost down per unit they would purchase "x" number of units ...who knows 36, these are the numbers that I have 10553 standard volume- the H55 10552 10 percent more volume and has a 3/4 inch pickup 10550 high volume - the HV 55 as far as pricing ...I dont know at the retail level....my cost was not much different, and the HV 55 version came with the heavy duty pinned drive included in the box
Don't know if you guys know how deep this goes. Stay away from Melling M55 Melling M55A Melling M55HV Sealed Power 224-4143 Moroso 22100 Moroso 22135 Canton #21-500 There are probably others as most oil pumps are made by Melling then rebadged by other people like Sealed Power, TRW, etc, etc.
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