Does anyone make 49-53 narrow 3/8" 2 belt system Ford Flathead water pumps with mounting tabs? I'm trying to avoid buying and changing pulleys. All my searching has lead me to believe there is no other way. I'm kind of surprised at this. Am I missing something?
The '49/'51 Mercury pumps have that configuration but the mounting arm or tab is higher in relation to the crank centerline than the 8RT truck pumps. The Merc pumps require a spacer when used in pre-'49 Fords or pickups with stock front cross member. I did the pulley switch on 8RT pumps, but not without encountering some minor issues. Ray
True, but there's no vendors making or selling Merc pumps. Junk yards, swap meets, online auctions only. THe good part is the innards are the same so all you need are cores to rebuild.
The '50-'51 Mercury pumps have the narrow two-belt 3/8" pulleys. ('49 Mercs, Fords and '48-'53 trucks all used the single 5/8" wide belt for the pumps) As stated above, the mount ears/tabs are higher up the casting than the '48-'52 truck or '38-'48 pumps.
That's a great photo instruction on rebuilding the pump. I have only one thing, maybe two, to add. When changing pulleys on my pumps, The first one I pressed off (wide belt) broke. I then made a tool to support the pulley from the underside of the pulley hub, rather than the sheave. I cut a length of tubing that would fit under the back of the pulley, split it lengthwise, placed inside the pulley and held it together with a hose clamp while I pressed the pulley off the shaft. The second thing I ran into, was one of the narrow belt pulleys was a loose slip fit on the new production pump's shaft. I had the pulley bored and a sleeve pressed in and sized to press fit on the shaft. Wasn't expecting that, but it worked out. Ray
Yes Ray, you have to be careful. Pressed steel pulleys bend. Cast pulleys break. Supporting the hub is crucial. Good luck.
Thanks for the info. I've got a brand new set of pumps I picked up at a swap meet a couple of years ago. The guy needed narrow pulleys but bought pumps with the wide pulleys. Now that guy is me. haha I was trying to avoid this but I guess I'll have to pick up a press and do the pulley swap. Does putting them in the freezer then heating around the pulley and trying to pop it off help? Anyone tried that?
My sedan has narrow pulleys and a bracket to the motor mounts. It was someones stalled project that I bought and finished up. It was like that when I got it. Will take a photo and post what it looks like.
The pic above is of my Merc 8CA, I don't have a use for it currently like I thought I would... Crusty but complete
Do you have a part number? On their web site I only see the same pumps every company sells. I need 49-53 narrow pulley pumps WITH the engine mounting tabs.
Hnstray accurately identifies the only stock pumps ('50-52 Merc) with mount leg and narrow pulleys, and needed spacer for early Ford use. Truck pumps fit early Ford directly but all have wide belts. Go to wide belts or rebuild truck pumps with passenger (post 1949) pulleys. Changing crank pulley and generator pulley seems easier to me than rebuilding pumps with mixed parts.
Ya that's what I was thinking when I was researching this. I do have wide belt water pumps. I guess I'll need to have a look at them to see if they're for a dual belt setup or not because I have no idea. I know they are 49-53 though because of the extra water passage. Once I figure this out I'll know what type of crank and generator pulley I need. Are they hard to get off? I haven't spent any time looking into this so I'll try and work it out before posting any questions.
Yes. No reason the pump housing or components should suffer any damage. The pulleys are the vulnerable part, as I described. In my case, I wanted the 8RT pumps to easily bolt the '53 Merc engine into the '47 Ford I was building. Further, I was adding A/C and alternator which had narrow belt drive pulleys. I used one belt to drive one water pump and the A/C, the other belt to drive the other pump and alternator. The narrower belts saved space and reduced the offset needed to accommodate this arrangement. It worked great. For a setup with only the original accessories, I agree there may be easier alternatives. Ray
just had the fellow in punta gorda fl rebuild me some 48 trk. pumps and put narrow pullys on them to use w/8ba eng in my Tv8.
I was afraid I would have to rebuild brand new pumps as a consequence of swaping the pulleys. Thanks for the info.
I was thinking there has to be shops out there doing this. I'm putting a 8ba in an A roadster. Cheers
Here are some photos of my water pumps. Brackets bolted to the underside of the car pumps. Was done before I got the project but they are strong and pumps don't leak. Underside where bolted to pumps. Might have to turn your head to view.
That's something I've not seen before. It looks pretty clean. I would probably swap the pulleys in my application though. Thanks for sharing it.
I think I've found an easy solution. I've ordered a pair of the 49-53 pumps I needed with the narrow pulleys and mounting tabs from H&H Flatheads in California.
Well that didn't work. H&H sent me the wrong pumps. They obviously didn't understand what I wanted. I'm going to be trying to swap all the pulleys to wide pulleys now and just be done with this. Does anyone have a good source where I can buy the correct pulleys. I don't want aluminum. I'll need a generator and crank pulley. I think I have a wide belt fan already. I dont know what year it's off but hopefully it will work.
i just had the same problem on my T w/8ba eng.sent 2 narrow pumps to fellow in fla [cant remember his name, great watpump guy], he but narrow pullys on a set of 48 truck pumps that have the tab mount on them, and rebuilt them.
Ya you've got to think this is a fairly common thing. I've decided that I'm swapping everything over to the wide belt setup. Now I need to search out some pulleys. I'll post an ad in the want section for that. Thanks for all the input and PM's. Flatheads are pretty rare in my neck of the woods so it's great to have a resource to ask stuff like this.
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