I made my own elephant ear plates close to 50 years ago, I set the engine in place and cut and fit cardboard to make a template, not hard to make. As mentioned above the torque of the engine will continually ruin the water pump gaskets no matter how much maintenance you do. To solve my problem I welded a plate across the top to join both pieces together. As the accessories go, I had the back of the stock water pump housing machined off the thickness of the plates. This was tricky as the holes open up as it is cut back, my plate was 1/4 " thick steel. On my housing it couldn't be machined any more unless the inner housing was welded up to realign the holes. On motor plates, I now use AndyF's on both of my cars, never had a gasket water leak problem and they look good too. Thank you Andy for putting out many great products for our Mopars.
