With new parts in hand, from the UK, I thought I’d quickly overhaul the oil pump that I had previously cleaned. Hmmm, to my surprise, the parts that I’d recieved did not match the parts that I had removed. The oil pump to distributor drive gear was about a quarter inch to long, and the pump gears on the pump pick up was also too tall, by about 5/16th’s.

What the heck is going on???

Seems I either got the wrong parts, or the pump that I have is not the correct pump for motor. Yet another setback…

I was able to carefully machine down both sets of gears, with fairly pleasing results. Once the lathe work was done, I reassembled the new gears and flattened the pump cap where there was slight wear from the prior gear set.

I received some goodies today from Brian at The Sunbeam Spares Company in the UK. Brian was super helpful in locating an oil pump to distributor drive gear for an early iron head 1494 engine, a water pump and oil pump rebuild kit. Love getting mail from England.

Within the boxes of engine parts, that were nestled ever so neatly in the trunk of the Rapier, were two miserably dirty oil pumps. Both oil pumps looked like they had seen better days, and both appeared to be unusable. I was hoping that I could take the two and make one good pump, but after I started cleaning them, even that thought seemed unlikely. Both pumps were the same part number, both had worn pump gears, and both pumps had broken distributor drive gears. At this point, I’m not even sure that either are the correct pump for our car.

After a thourough cleaning, I ended up with two usable housings and one pump to block oil pipe. A pump gear and distributor gear would need to be located before the oil pump could be reassembled….Rrrrr!!!