The problem I had was that I needed some kind of gasket as a spacer to make sure that the impeller doesn't contact the block as the back of the housing. I decided to have a go at making a gasket out of cork from scratch for the spacer.

Armed with a memory of instructions I found on the internet on how to do this I got started. Getting the outside shaped was amazingly easy. With my ball peen hammer I tapped around the edge of the housing which cut the cork on the corner of the housing.

The rest was a bit more difficult. The bigger open spaces allowed me to use the same hammer technique, however when it got in close to the impeller the hammer couldn't reach anymore so I had to resort to using scissors and checking against the housing regularly.

To get the bolt holes we got 2 hammers, set the ball peen of one over the hole and tapped. This cut the cork or at least made a mark, enough so that I could cut the rest of the hole out with scissors.

You can just see the pump in place. I probably should have painted the fan shroud while I had it out, but I didn't really have the abrasives to clean it up enough for good painting.

In the middle you can see a temperature gauge reading about 80 Degrees Celsius. This was after driving around a bit and seeing how the brakes go and so on. Because the fan is always going it probably takes a little longer to warm up than I am used to with a more modern car, but it still gets there no worries so no concerns there.

Now sitting in the back of the yard so I could get the fireball dinghy out. It will move under it's own power, but only in low range. in high range there seems to be something holding it back. I know the brakes need some work so that is my current theory, one of the wheels might not be letting go properly. After that issue is fixed it should be driving well, just needs a full fluid change then I can get on to making sure it will pass rego.

Cheers,

Rex