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Hello,

I am looking for a little help/advice.  I have a 1985 GT5.  My water pump went out recently.  Two questions;

1) Any advice or instructions that you would recommend or follow for the easiest way to replace the water pump?

2) Any recommendations on what water pump I should buy to replace the old one?

Thanks.

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Since no one has answered I'll take a shot.

Most of your work will have to be done thru the hole in the firewall.  You will have to wedge yourself in the car maybe even remove the seats if they are in the way.  The actual removal and replacement is fairly easy and just like any other ford V8.

Please keep in mind I have not had to replace one in my pantera yet but have done many on my mustangs.

Burping air out of the pantera cooling system will be a challenge.  I understand there is a great tool for this someone posted about a few weeks back.

Take out the safety belt bolts (2) from the firewall be aware of the distance bushes , and the passenger seat, slide the driver seat to the front . Than on the bottem of the panel there are 2 screws each side , slide the panal upwardts and you can take out the panel .

Than you have acces to the center section of the firewall wat has 10 small bolts . take out this and you have acces to the waterpump.

check also the alternator if the bearings are ok.

1971 Mustang repair manual was always helpfull for work on the 351Cl engine.

Simon

What I experienced with the Edelbrock water pump was that if I started turning my engine over 6000 rpm, there was a cavitation problem. This lead to a temporary increase in water temperature. From what I can tell, the Edelbrock water pump has an open impellor design, which can make it prone to cavitation. Other than that issue, it is certainly a quality water pump and might be fine for someone else's application. It just didn't do that well with my engine set up and will be replaced with a FlowKool pump. I also installed the SACC smaller aluminum pump pulley which does move more water than the stock pulley.

@panteradoug posted:

Whatever pump that you use, make sure that the bypass hole is drilled.

The Wieand is not. Don't panic though. It only needs a 1/4" hole.

You want the bypass open on a Pantera. On a Mustang, maybe not.

Hi Doug,

Just curious why you want the bypass open on a Pantera water pump?  I've had the Weiand on my Pantera for 10 years without issue.  Warmup might have the temp needle climb and fall a couple of times, but engine gets to temp pretty quickly and then runs cool, regardless of the outside temps.

Like Garth I ran a Cleveland for 50,000 miles with a Weiand  water pump that was not drilled for bypass. In addition to that, previous engine builder had completely blocked off the brass restrictor plate except for a small air bleed hole. I know this is not “correct” per common wisdom but it worked fine. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

My new 404 Cleveland stroker uses the Edelbrock pump, a proper brass bypass plate and the proper thermostat from Tim Meyers.

there are multiple solutions, I should probably say approaches, regarding the Pantera cooling system…….

for me, the bottom line is having a Pantera that can be parked without coolant boil over, gurgling or expansion tank discharge after becoming totally heat-soaked in heavy traffic with a true and correct coolant temperature of 230°F.

this does of course require an accurate coolant temperature gauge, but if your system works this well I wouldn’t put tinkering with it near the top of your upgrade list.

YMMV

Larry

@garth66 posted:

Hi Doug,

Just curious why you want the bypass open on a Pantera water pump?  I've had the Weiand on my Pantera for 10 years without issue.  Warmup might have the temp needle climb and fall a couple of times, but engine gets to temp pretty quickly and then runs cool, regardless of the outside temps.

There are several threads on this subject on this forum. They are pretty old by now. Probably from around 2000.

As supplied new with the blocked bi-pass, the engine temp was erratic. Not something that I wanted in a Pantera.

In all honesty, I didn't know what was wrong initially until I read a thread here on this forum about the subject.

Upon opening the bypass in the pump, all returned to normal and relieved the additional tension associated with the running hot syndrome.



Interesting enough, I had a Boss 351 in my 68 Shelby GT350 for a few years. I had the pump installed as it came from Wieand.

In that application it showed none of the nasty tendencies it did in my Pantera.



It's a simple recommendation from me particularly to Pantera newbies. Use the bi-pass...you will probably live longer as a result.

The Wieand pump comes with it undrilled. I am not aware of the combinations of all of the others but I do believe that the Edelbrock has it drilled.



Here's one here. https://pantera.infopop.cc/top...er-pump-modifacation

There are others.

Last edited by panteradoug

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