1978 - The Fourth Improvement - Water Pump

By now I was keen to make minor changes to improve the overall running condition of the car and reduce a bit of the constant maintenance. Bill Eldridge suggested what turned out to be the second of three mods, that thanks to Bill, made the car run better. This time the target was the water pump. As I recall,the pump I had used to put the car back on the road needed some TLC. After calling Bill, who was not only a vast reservoir of Chev knowledge, but very close by, I was on the way to Noble Park again. Bill's mod consisted of replacing the front housing bush, which was bronze, and required constant oiling, with some needle bearings and an O ring on both sides to retain the grease that was forced into the original oil hole by hand. The modified water pump ran fine from 1978 right through to 2009, when after hearing about a modernised Chev water pump during the Chev 4 Castlemaine Tour, the pump was changed to a unit modified by Ray Hatcher in NSW, but that's another story to be told later.