Re: 1934 Eight water pump

Posted by Bill Hawley On 2022/7/5 12:13:37

So, thank you everyone for your insightful input. It is greatly appreciated. I was going to put the car in a local show and test drove it. Fairly quickly (within a couple of miles) I was blowing coolant out of the overflow and my after market temperature gauge was pegged at 280 F. It seems to me that either the water pump isn't working or there is some sort of obstruction or both. I think its time to open it up and flush everything....but before doing that I have several questions.
1. Would you recommend me trying to flush the entire system first or drain it and flush the radiator and the engine separately?
2. One of you guys suggested that if I took the water jacket cover plate off I could see the pump blades from there. Is that accurate and would that give me enough inspection of the pump to determine it's status?
3. Just a quick look at the water jacket cover looks like its held on by ~36 bolts. Do those have a propensity to snap off?
4. Any gasket suggestions for water jacket cover?
5. It was suggested that removal of the water pump does not require removing the radiator. It looks like the fan is held on with 4 bolts? It looks like the fan pulley is affixed to the shaft with a nut? Do I have those right? Since there appears to be no adjustment pulley for the fan belts is there some trick to pulling off and putting on the pulley with the belts?
6. The device in the top of the radiator that actuates the linkage for the louvers has never worked for me so I have the louvers set open. Other than correctness for the car does that bellows or whatever is in the radiator sit in and possibly block the flow? I'm just trying to figure out whether or not I should even try to mess with it at this point.
I know some of these questions may seem a little bit basic but I'm trying to do work that I can recover from.

I thank you for taking the time to read through this and would appreciate any information you could provide. Thank you for your patience.

Bill