HEMI Tech: Oil systems- filters, pumps, pans

TR waters says he put things on EBay every couple of months. Maybe someone can figure out how to contact him through them.

 

If a vendor is almost impossible to contact, there is a good chance he will never provide any kind of real customer service.

My two cents.

David

 

Based on the pics in 'his' web site, the package appears to be pretty straight forward. Perhaps an enterprising machinist with a fondness for EarlyHemis can put a similar package on his to-do list... If not I'll take a look. How many folks would actually use something like this in their 331?

I am a bit curious about 'his' not supplying a gear on the shaft. If the shaft is hardened then it would be difficult for a certain percentage of buyers to be able to drill through for the supplied roll-pin. If the shaft is not hardened it would be easy to drill, but.....

Lately, I prefer to use an ever-so-slightly-larger shaft and press the gears on with some Locktite shaft retainer.

Gary

 

I need one, mine has the HH pump & shaft in it. Needless to say the pucker factor has increased considerably the last few days. ASAP would be nice for availabilty! I'd think a new drill would handle the job. TR said he is hesitant about making them for liability reasons, like desoto's situation, so no relief from that direction.

 

I'm going to look into the availability of Mellings oil pump intermediate shafts as it looks like he may be buying an over-the-counter Mellings shaft and including it with his pump adapter (which is, probably, the only thing he's manufactuing)

 

check post 43

 

REV ENG address in Tex Smith's book is 15075 chelsea dr. San Jose, ca. any HAMBers near there?

 

OK boys and girls, I got curious over the weekend and played around with a 51-53 331 (that is what I had handy on a stand)... I did not look at the others...yet...

The stock A-LA shaft will not work if any kind of spacer/adapter is placed between the pump and the main cap.

However, if the M72, or similar, is placed directly on the cap then the stock A-LA drive shaft is a perfect fit.

It appears to me that with a couple on minor machine operations on the cap itself and the fabrication of one part that the A-LA pump is nearly a bolt-on. The machine operations I mention will not have any affect on also switching back to a stock pump if needed.

Over the next week or two I will make the mods to the parts I have handy and see if the initial thoughts pan out. It looks to be pretty simple...now why didn't I look at it sooner...

Feel free to send a note or call if you have any questions.

Gary

 

Ok, lets start from the beginning.

I rebuilt my engine in the winter of '92/'93 (after the Louisville "flood) using a new block, crank and rods, Same heads, pistons, and cam.

I rebuilt the best oil pump I could lay my hands on and started driving the car.

58+ thousand miles later I replaced the anemic stock oil pump with a Hot Heads 340 conversion pump. The oil pressure jumped up from a consistent 25 psi - hot to well over 50 psi hot.

This level of good oil pressure was maintained right up until I had to remove the pump to get at the rear connecting rods and rear main cap.

I was pulling a piston to send it out to Ross so that they could measure it up and whip me up a set of duplicates because, by now, there were upwards of 257,000 miles on the pistons and I knew there were a few marginal ring lands.

I checked every ring land just to make sure I didn’t need any shims and threw the block back together along with a fresh set of rods and mains (which I painstakingly Plastigauged). I just wanted to get a few more months out of the engine and pull it out this winter and use the heads and cam in my new engine. If I didn’t have to send a piston to Ross, I’d have never pulled the engine down at all.

When it came time to slap the oil pump back in, I noticed that the end of the drive shaft was really worn. The pump only had between 35 and 40 thousand miles on it and the drive dog was nearly sheared off. A few more miles and it'd have been just a pin sticking up into the intermediate shaft.



Click on the icon for the rest of the pictures

I went on line and ordered a new replacement from Hot Heads as I wasn’t aware that Mellings has recently re-introduced their stock replacement pump.

After a bit of hassle getting the new pump to align with the intermediate shaft w/o any binding, I buttoned the engine back up and went for a short test drive.

Wicked good oil pressure as before. Great, no noises, engine runs smooth although a bit warmer (10-15 degrees) probably due to the new rings and everything looks fine.

Took a trip up the Interstate to Lowell and ran close to 180 degrees on the highway instead of the customary 160 but it was a really hot Saturday afternoon.

The engine temperature dropped as the miles increased.

I dropped the break-in oil and filled the pan with my usual Shell Rotella-T 15-40 and all seemed ok until the engine got hot. The oil pressure was off a bit but well above the 25 psi I had grown accustomed to for some 30 years prior to installing the high volume pump.

I left for Louisville on a relatively hot weekend and all was going fine. The hot oil pressure held at 40 until I got well into West Virginia where it slowly dropped to 25 psi. I pulled into a rest area and used the facilities and looked things over and couldn’t find any obvious reason (I thought I might have let the oil level drop but it was right up there)

When I fired it back up, the pressure was a bit higher so I attributed it to the mid day heat, which on the weekend before the nationals was very oppressive. The thermometer in my car read 102.

The hot oil pressure stayed at 25 psi all week. The cold pressure was still running up against the relief valve at 65 psi and the pressure never really dropped that much driving back and forth from the motel to the fairgrounds.

On Monday night, in the bar at the Crowne Plaza, I was introduced to Bob Walker and his wife (I had already met them previously and knew who they were)

We discussed the fact that they don’t have a dipstick for my car (the curved one) and she kept insisting that they did. ….they don’t

Then the topic got around to my worn out oil pump and she insisted I didn’t know what I was talking about. They ship one or two a day out of their place and have never been aware of any issues. She kept insisting that their shafts were hardened even when she was told that they’re only chrome moly, just like their website description says. After multiple attempts to convince her that they did, indeed, have issues and listening to her vehement denials I left with a parting remark to the effect of their not having any issues because their customer base is all trailer queens who never drive their cars.

On the way home, four hundred thirty-odd miles from Louisville, their brand new oil pump quit altogether as I was climbing a long grade just before exit 14 in western Maryland. One of the five pump impeller cover bolts had backed out and the pump had been leaking thinned oil back into the pan. Thick, cold, oil didn’t leak but the hot, thinner, oil easily passed through the crack.


The heavy strain on the crank from pulling a 4000+ car up a grade swelled up the crank and rods to the point that 4 (I initially thought it was only 3 until I dropped the windage tray and saw number 5 rod with one bolt snapped off at the head) rods seized the crank and the momentum of the car helped keep the crank moving and the rod bolts and the corners of the rods/caps snapped off. Interestingly, the bolt that snapped on number 5 was the bolt that would have been under tension when the rod seized.



You can see rod number three poking out on the right side of the picture




Of the 4 rods that failed, none showed any signs of bearing failure. They didn't have time to score or gall. They simply grabbed the crank and snapped the caps right off. However, the 4 remaining rods as well as all 5 main bearings showed initial signs of starting to gall.

So, what’s the bottom line? The Hot Heads oil pump design is flawed. If you have one in your engine, drop the pan and check the drive tab. The bolts AREN’T Loctited, either, and it would be a good idea to check the torque on them because Hot Heads pulled apart a perfectly good Mellings pump to change the drive shaft. If I'd known they weren't Loctited, I might have put a wrench on them but I was under the impression that they were and my fiddling with them would have ruprured the Loctite.

This isn’t about my misfortune as much as it is a warning for others. I’ve been building and running hemis for nearly 50 years and have been driving this particular hemi-powered ’34 sedan for 47 years and I’ve never seen an oil pump go south like a Hot Heads pump….and in less than 50,000 miles. The first two blocks I put together had worn out old stock oil pumps with rebuild kits installed and in a combined total of nearly 165,000 miles, they never failed like these Hot Heads pumps.

 

for anything other than a 392.

Stock rear main cap. 3/8" pump adapter plate. Melling M72 pump. LA drive shaft. Press shaft deeper in gear for pump engagement. Use 392 distributor.

Just an idea.

 

I'm having Kent Redd make me a hex shaft. [email protected] Has been doing hemi stuff for years, just doesn't advertise.

 

Gary

Let us know when you get it sorted out. I've got a 331 on the engine stand I need a pump for.

Thanks;

Bob

 

Bob, I have had a slight delay in my 'normal' schedule (elderly in-laws....) so will be another week or two until I get back on track but photos will follow.

Gary

 

I purchased a Kent Redd trans adapter around 1984 ish Early Hemi to Chrysler 727 auto ......great product & perfect fit.

 

Has anyone tried the Milodon Early Hemi Oil Pump?
<TABLE width=785 border=1><TBODY><TR bgColor=#cccccc><TD colSpan=4 height=30>CHRYSLER EARLY 354 / 392 HEMI -</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=2></TD></TR><TR><TD>Early Hemi (354-392) - For any application from Nostalgia Top Fuel to Street Rod. Uses a late model 340 high volume oil pump with 1.030" tall gears that are adapted to the 392 main cap. On a 354, a minor rework of the mounting bolt holes is required. Special pump cover and pick-up ensures maximum oil pump flow and volume. Gear shaft is made from 4130 chrome moly to reduce twist under high loads. Uses a stock intermediate shaft. Designed for stock rear sump and Milodon 31162 pans.</TD><TD>20155 </TD><TD vAlign=top>Early Hemi (354-392) - Designed for the #30932 rear sump, street rod style pan and the #18342 tube pickup. Assembly includes a 340 high volume oil pump adapted to the 392 main cap. On a 354, a minor rework of the mounting bolt holes is required. Gear shaft is made from 4130 chrome moly to reduce twist under high loads. Uses a stock intermediate shaft. Designed for Milodon 30932 pans using tube style pickup.</TD><TD>18342
20150

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

Years ago I LUSTED after the Milodon adapter. The TWO things I did not like about the Milodon oil pump adapter Is the piece between the oil pump and the main can looks weak/easily broken and I did not like the adapter shaft. After I started building my Trans Adapter I decided to try to do my take on a oil pump adapter. I built one. The prototype went on a engine Dad and I built for Mini-Rod tractor pulling. The engine had Spirit Aluminum head. I built the full length shaft from W-1 Drill Rod. The engine with 50 Weight oil when cold would peg a 100 PSI pressure gauge. Later, I built the shafts from 4140. When I was building them, I got a call from a Nostalgia Drag Race on the West Coast about my oil pump adapter. We talked for sometime on the phone. His desire was for me to copy the Milodon. I told him I thought mine was better but following the axiom that the customer is always right I said I would try to do the copy. He said he had one that I could measure/look at. When his order came in, there was not any Milodon pieces. I called asking him why there was not any Milodon pieces to look at. He said he had changed his mind and he would go with my design. I shipped the TWO adapter out a few days later to his word address. He wrench for a John Deere industrial dealer. Three days later, when he received his package, He called and told me that MY design was far superior to the Milodon design. You can take this ALL as BS BECAUSE I CAN NOT document this as I have forgotten the mans name, OLD TIMES Disease. This is my story and I am sticking to it.
The reason I quit building the adapter was because a steel company screwed me on some steel. I ordered two 12 foot sticks of 1/2 inch 4140. I cut it into the lengths I needed and sent it of to a Centerless Grinding company to have it ground down to the size need for Early Hemi/A-Block oil pump drive shafts. When I got the shafting back, I started cutting the 5/16 hex. Since 4140 work hardens so badly I had been searching for a better end mill than the SOLID CARBIDE I had been using. I was using a Roughing end mill and it was cutting GREAT. I thought I had found my answer. I finished building the shaft. When I went to Flame Harden the HEX I found the material WOULD NOT flame harden. This told me that IT WAS NOT 4140. I had a bunch of money in the centerless grinding of WORTHLESS steel and I could NOT recover from this.

Kent

 

Anybody have the (old) Melling number for a 330 Desoto pump or rebuild kit?

Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome aboard Kent, good to know that you are still alive and kicking!

I can appreciate your issues with the losses incurred on the shaft project. Those who have not/do not design and fab parts don't have a clue how easy it is for something to 'go-south'...along with the investment.


Gary

 

What Gary said.

 

Kent

Welcome aboard!! Good to see your still playing with old Hemi's!!

Bob

 

Kent

Are you still making Hemi parts?

Might be time to start making some more adapters?



Bob

 

I thought I'd try to slip this in among all the part numbers and tech stuff. Gary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pHc-Kz9WX4&feature=player_embedded

 

Welcome aboard

 

You guys do realize that making a lot of oil pressure takes HP.
A story from MANY years ago when I worked for a short time at a cousins JD dealership. The had a 1010 or 1020 JD that they had rebuilt. Before the tractor was finished they sold it. One of the things they did getting it ready for it's new owner was to break the engine in on a PTO Dyno. While the tractor was on the dyno they notice a oil leaking from the valve cover breather/road draft tube. This would be a oil consumption the new owner would rightly complain about. One of the thing they checked was the engines oil pressure. It was 50 PSI. This was about 20 PSI above spec. on this engine that only turns 2200 RPM. They reduced the oil pressure to 30 PSI. The tractor with the reduced oil pressure picked up 2 HP on the PTO which would be about 3 or 4 at the engine flywheel. If you are running 80 PSI cold and 50 PSI hot it is a wonder more of these 5/32 ( .156 inch ) tags DO NOT wear off/fail.

Kent

 

I just want to get the factory-recomended oil pressure and you can't get that with a worn stock pump, even with a rebuild kit installed, because the scoring on the pump body allows oil to leak past the gears.
A NEW pump doesn't have this problem and the ONLY new pump available for the low deck hemis appears to be theA-block pump - high volume or stock and the only way to get this to work is to use a Hot Headshigh volume pump with a soft, fragile shaft or use either version with a converted and HARDENED intermediate shaft.

When I bought my first Hot Heads pump, I thought I was going to get an off the shelf Melling pump and a converted shaft (the adapter kit he advertised). It was a disapointment when I saw that it was a modified pump and a mountimg adapter.

In any event, the 340 pump gave me the factory-specified oil pressure throughout it's lifespan. Unfortunately, the shaft wore out in less than 40,000 miles.

 

Exactly!

 

Installment number one; oil pump swap for the 51-53 331 Chrysler.

As has been noted in previous threads, the 51-53 331 pump is a one-only pump design. Although the pump 'looks' like the Early DeSoto they do not interchange due to the slight change in the mounting bolt locations (see previous posts). Additionally, there is a minor change in the length of the rotor/shaft assembly. There are just two 'foot' patterns for the several different pump body designs so we will modify a 51-53 331 main cap to accept the 'other' pattern which is common to the 392 pump and which is, as of this date, in production from Melling: the M-50.
Because we are dealing only with the pump and main cap, do not forget that you will also need to deal with the oil pickup tube and screen assembly for the particular oil pan configuration that you will use.

The first step is to set a piece of soft all-thread in the cap. We used Locktite 242 in this job. Be cautious about using a bolt that could be harder than the cap material because we will be drilling through both materials and a hard bolt could force the drill bit to drift into the softer cast. If you use a bolt you should anneal it first.

The next step is to make things flat:






While the cap is positioned in the vise we will also enlarge the oil transfer slot just a wee bit:




Now back to the bolt hole... We located the new hole center with a transfer punch through a 392 pump body. Now it is time to drill and tap the new hole:



We now have a 51-53 331 Chrysler main cap that will accept the Melling M-50 pump without any other modifications. No adapters, no questionable shafts, just stock parts.
If you want to use an A-LA distributor you only need a new intermediate shaft assembly just the same as if the original early pump was in place.



Could this be done by a handy hot-rodder with a good drill press? Possibly, since the oil transfer slot is not critical but rather 'just nice to do'. The big hurdle will be to make sure that the new plug is dead flat to the mounting surface when you are done.
Can it be done at home? Yes
Should it be done at home? Maybe not.

The next installment will be to modify this same main cap for the Melling M-72HV pump (340 high volume). Stay tuned.

EDIT....PHOTOBUCKET HAS DELETED MY ACCOUNT ALONG WITH THE PICS. I'LL TRY TO ADD THEM DIRECTLY. IF YOU NEED THEM BEFORE I GET IT FIXED SEND A PM. Jan 1, 2024

 

Great tech 73RR!!! I'd do it at home!

 

54-6 next?

 

Phase II:
Installation of the Melling M72HV oil pump on the 51-53 331 Chrysler main cap.
Although the M50 pump is most adequate for all engines and is a direct bolt-on to all except for the early 331, there is continued interest in using the M72HV pump because of the lower initial cost. The lower initial cost is obviously off-set by the cost of the needed machine work. Additionally, the M72 pump then requires the use of the LA intermediate shaft and gear assembly. Although a series of new 'tall' shafts is being designed, currently, the stock shaft is all that is available so using an LA distributor is problematic.
This procedure for modifying the main cap will be the same for all of the Hemi engines, with either mounting pattern.
In this photo we place the M72 pump on the main cap using the existing registration.


In this photo we will use a transfer punch to locate the one bolt hole that lands on the cap.


Now, back into the mill to drill and tap the new hole.



And now we have a new bolt hole for the M72 pump.


Also note that in the last three photos there is a slight chamfer on the edge of the mounting surface. This is required to provide clearance to the pump body.
Next step is to go back into the mill so that we can clean off the top of the cap for the main bolt. Some caps will show alot of galling in this area and we need a surface that is very clean and flat.


Next, we will shift our attention to the fabricated part that will support the second pump attaching bolt. With the new part in the lathe we will square each end.



With the ends squared up we will bolt it in place on the main cap. This will be its final location. Once secured we will take one or two generous cuts to get us close, then start making 0.0005" passes to get to the cap surface.


The final pass will be a cut across the new part and the main cap.


During the installation of the main cap a strap is attached to the pump body and the fabricated part to hold the part from rotating when the bolt is torqued down. This strap will also keep the new part from becoming separated from the cap prior to installation. These are now precision matched parts and cannot be replaced without putting the main cap back in the mill.


It is also now necessary to replace one of the pump bolts with a stud due to the location of the new hole.



The final requirement for this swap is to insure that the pump clears the main cap and new fabricated part so that it has a perfect fit. On this particular pump body some minor grinding was needed to remove excess flashing. The areas marked in yellow were cleaned up.


This is not a do-it-yourself kinda job, unless you have a mill and a lathe. If you have the equipment go ahead and use the photos as a guide to do your change-over.
If you really want to use an M72HV pump and need help you can send your main cap and pump to us and we will do the work for you. We can also supply the pump.

.