Regular vs. Reverse flow water pump for Bronco

Is there any reason you can't convert a reverse flow cooling system on a Ford 302 to regular flow? To make a long story short, a simple water pump replacement turned into a timing belt, timing gear and timing belt cover replacement too. I didn't realize it but Autozone gave me the wrong timing belt cover (regular flow instead of reverse) and i put it on, but when I tried to bolt up the new reverse flow water pump, it wouldn't seal up. I checked with Autozone and they said reverse flow is OEM & the regular one is also specified for the Bronco and they apparently sent the wrong one. To work with this I looked at a water pump for a crown vic and compared it to the old reverse flow pump...the vanes on both point the same direction so they both seem to have the same specified pump rotation.

I really didn't feel like taking the timing belt cover off again so I have put on the crown vic pump and the car is actually running cooler, but is there any downside to this modification?

Reply to
GSS
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Timing ***Belt***?

Spdloader

Reply to
Spdloader

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 02:10:08 +0000, Spdloader rearranged some electrons to form:

I think he's confused.

Reply to
David M

Yup.

Spdloader

Reply to
Spdloader

Trying to figure out wtf you were working on dude.

Don't know how it'll work when or if you tow with it. I think water volume is the tradeoff.

Spdloader

Reply to
Spdloader

Reverse flow water pumps are used mostly on serpentine belt set ups, standard rotation with V-belts. The thermostat is going to be the monkey wrench. Push the water backwards and instead of pushing hot water at the thermostat, your going to hit with cold water. There are some autos on the market that do cool the head first and the thermostat is at the bottom of the engine. I don't think yours is set up that way, but I wont swear to that.

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:54:00 -0700, GSS rearranged some electrons to form:

You're probably not "actually running cooler." If in fact you're pumping the water in reverse, the temp. sensor is measuring the water as it leaves the radiator, not the engine block. This also means the computer doesn't know the real temperature of the engine and is running it too rich.

It also means you're not pumping very much water, which means you're probably overheating the engine and don't know it.

Reply to
David M

The "normal" and "reverse" flow designs have more to do with the drive belt -- the normal style uses the v-belt and the reverse style uses the serpentine belt.

If you spin a water pump the wrong way, it will not pump water. What you always need to do when replacing a water pump is compare the impeller of the pump you are removing with the impeller of the pump that is being installed. In a perfect world, this comparison would be done at the parts counter because the manufacturer (or re-manufacturer, to be more precise) frequently tags the boxes wrong, or tags the right and fills them wrong -- either case results in you getting an ABC when you really need an XYZ.

I have a set of unknown brake pads on my bench today because the pads inside the box are not the pads that belong to the part number printed on the box.

Having said that, if you wanted to convert a normal flow to a reverse flow, you could do it by converting from v-belts to a serpentine. This conversion presents its own set of new problems to deal with though, and I'd not do it if I could avoid it.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

You guys keep saying "reverse flow," do you mean "reverse rotation?"

Al

Reply to
Big Al

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:41:49 -0700, Big Al rearranged some electrons to form:

I think he's got a normal (v-belt) pump on a serpentine (reverse rotation) setup. So it's turning backwards.

Reply to
David M

Yes. That is a better term.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

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