You might want to check out a van application, too. Their accessories are oriented a bit different, I bet. Plus, they're almost universally ignored in the salvage yard...

Clair

Jerry,

Where did you get a reverse rotation water pump for a big block?

Ha, the thread claws it's way back from the grave...

Speaking of vans, though, I found a couple in the 'yard today. I think the van stuff mounts the ALT way high and inboard... not necessarily bad, but they're obviously not worried about packaging from a vertical standpoint. That might be trouble for a "real" car. Anyone have photos of both side by side? I need to go back through the old posts in this thread to see if there's a truck application shown already.

Clair

For Jerry's reverse rotation big block water pump, and... does anyone have a link that shows how the dodge truck brackets and idlers are arranged? I don't have a good photo in any of my manuals, and have come up dry on the internet so far. Only a bajillion hits for Dodge Magnum Serpentine on google...

Clair

Again...I need to know about the reverse flow pump too...I already have Jerry's setup, but not a pump!

well why doesn't someone PM jerry about the question? i haven't been watching this since its a small block thread.

on the big block and i would assume small block too otherwise the pump wouldn't function at all. if you buy a water pump that has a anti cavitation plate welded or riveted to the impeller then it will work in either direction. mind you this is in regards to LA small blocks. i believe the factory magnum waterpump is reverse rotation as i looked at stealing the impeller of that for my big block setup but it wasn't worth the effort. i run a milodon HV water pump on my car and it work fine cooling my big block.

next time theres a question PM me and ask me to respond to the thread its not like you don't know my user name.

bttt, in case people missed it the first time around

You're saying that the regular old Milodon water pump works fine spinning backwards?
Seems like an invitation for cavitation.

Going back to the original issues, it doesn't look like you can bolt on the Magnum PS pump & bracket as it sits. I just got done with a rough mock-up of the '92? Ram 2500 Van setup I got over the last couple of weekends, and it looks like there's no place for the PS pump to mount. On the Mag, it apears to mount on the block, and there are 4 bolts that hold it in place. None of these bolt holes are on an LA engine. Now, I will admit to having slept since I took the parts off of the van, so maybe I'm missing something, but RIGHT NOW, it looks like that little tidbit is a no-go on an LA engine. On the other hand, I THINK it ought to be pretty straight forward to use 90% of the LA PS brackets to mount the PS pump in approximately the same LA location.

This SHOULD BE possible because most of the bolt holes on the timing cover are in the same place as the LA bolt holes. However, the bottom two bolt holes on the Magnum water pump are farther apart (pretty sure, brain dump) than the LA, so that MIGHT affect one bracket for the PS. Beyond that, you'd have to make sure the pulley lined up, and, you'd have to have a serpentine pulley on the PS pump, obviously. I think you can accomplish this by swapping the pumps (if they're both Saginaw, this might be plug-n-play), or swapping the pulleys. In either case, you'll have to pull the pulley off of the Magnum pump to get to the bracket bolts which are under the pulley...

I'll attach some pics to show what I've got so far.

Clair

Block face...

PS Pump and bracket... the extended boss needs to mount on the same level as the machined face of the block for the pulley to line up. I need to look at an engine in the 'yard again...

Here's a view from the top. The Mag bracket will ALMOST bolt up to an old-style LA manifold, but there is an AC boss (lower right on manifold) that gets in the way. If you use the Mag AC, just hack the boss off, if you're in love with that manifold. If you're not using AC, just hack the boss off, and...

Also, the LA t-stat will PROBABLY work, but you'll PROBABLY have to hack part of the AC portion of the bracket off on the Mag bracket. This is the part on the upper right part of the Mag bracket, and the AC part is framed by the four square bolt holes that you can see. Note that in the pic, the intake manifold is moved back towards the rear of the engine by about 1.5" so these two issuse will clear. There are also some small brackets that stabilize the ALT and AC on the intake. You'll have to sort that out if using a non-M1 EFI type of manifold.

Clair

Update to the PS issue: You can NOT bolt the Magnum PS setup to a non-Magnum engine block... the LA block is missing at least one bolt hole at about the 2:00 position relative to the frost plug on the DS front of the block. See the attachment for "block face" (above) to see where I'm talking about. That's the bolt hole that the extended boss on the PS bracket bolts to, and at least two of the other three bolt to the cylinder head (my best guess, couldn't get to the engine in the salvage yard this weekend).

HOWEVER, all is not lost. It looks like some relatively simple mods to the stock Saginaw mounts will allow the PS pump to bolt up to the Magnum serp. setup. Here's my revised mockup of the LA PS pump with Magnum pulley attached:



The water pump is out of the way on this one because of where the mounting bolt (the pivot bolt on the Saginaw brackets) needs to go on the Magnum water pump. Obviously, the Saginaw bracket would interfere with the WP.

Continued...

The Magnum PS pump needs to be tweaked a little bit to work with the LA PS pump brackets. In this photo, you can see the second stud (circled, Magnum - clean - pump) that has already been installed and was robbed from the LA PS pump. The Mag originally comes with a thin-head bolt (circled, LA pump), since none of the mounting points on the Magnum pump bracket are on the back of the pump.



Note: there seems to be something funky about the bolts between the two pumps. Pretty sure that the Mag pump has metric fasteners. However, the stud from the LA pump threads in just fine on the Mag pump, but the bolt from the Mag pump doesn't seem to want to go in to the LA pump. Strange, but it works the way I want it to...

Continued...

Other Saginaw bracket mods that need to be done are just meatball surgery. The rear "triangular" bracket that bolts to the pump body needs to be flattened out completely EXCEPT for the little dogleg that attaches one end to the lower mounting stud. That stays the same. Also, the main, heavy front bracket needs to get hacked down to size.

This has to be done to fit against the Mag WP, as mentioned before. This photo shows how I'm planning to modify the main bracket to fit:



Basically, making a small triangle out of the large rectangular bracket. This *SHOULD* provide sufficient resistance to twisting, and a small strut from the lower timing chain bolts to the back of the pump *SHOULD* prevent any rotation around the pivot bolt. No adjustment needed any more... Oh, and you'll need a short spacer and a nut on the back of pivot bolt to secure the rear mounting bracket. Easier to see what's going on in the Return Line photo below.

Continued...

Prior to cutting anything, I torqued everything down and checked the pulley alignment:



Pretty dang good! Still, you don't want your belt walking off any of the pulleys, so may as well make the alignment "right". This means that the outer (main) PS pump bracket needs to go back another 1/16" or so. There's a small boss on the WP where the pivot bolt goes, and it's about the right thickness. I'm going to mill (file) that boss down flush with the main part of the pump, and see if that does the trick. Doing that won't affect the operation of the pump at all, since nothing else bolts up there (AFAIK).

Continued...

Final thing to consider is actually using the Magnum PS pump, or at least the reservoir porion. The return line is situated in a way that provides more clearance to the head than the LA pump does. You can see how the hose runs on the previous photo of the backs of the pumps, and you can see how close the LA return line gets to the head here:



The LA return line is so close to the head you can't have clamps on the line, OR, you can't remove the clamps without pulling the pump. The Mag should solve that.

More to follow...

Clair

This is awesome info and your doing all the hard work for me!! How nice!

Hehe! I'm doing all the hard work for ME, but feel free to use as much/little as you want. We can both fail miserably then...

Clair

so in the end clair, what you're saying, is just start out with a complete magnum motor?