Topic: 79 403 water pump advice

[kidd-7]

I have a '79 TA w/ the 403; all stock. It has been rarely driven over the years. Around 5 or 6 years ago the water pump was replaced, it's now leaking again. I haven't worked on 40 year old cars much and need some advice.

Rock Auto has standard volume & High volume/ pressure, which do I use? What brand?

I plan on replacing all the hoses, T stat, belts.

Any other advice before I dig into this?

[Wallington]

You need to research what they are selling before you dive in. For an Olds in a Firebird, you always want the 6" long version, the longest of the 3 GM lengths. They often call this the AirCon length pump, but on Firebirds it was used even without the A/C. Like anything, many pumps are different brands rebadged or popped in a box by someone else.

I have the Flowkooler HV 1775 on mine, was one of the better pumps 10 years ago for a street engine, not that there's a lot of difference.

Apart from degreasing the engine where you want to work, and spilling used coolant everywhere, it's fairly straightforward to swap a water pump on these. The hardest part may be just the loosening of accessories to remove belts, just fiddly.

A couple of accessory bracket links that may be of use, lists belts used for different 403 setups. Flowkooler 1775 pump shown, painted to match otherwise bare aluminium.

http://www.78ta.com/HTAF/index.php?topic=27464.0

http://camaro-firebird.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4132

[Jefe]

I also use the FlowKooler pump on my 403