Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Water Pump for 4/4 1948

Hello guys:

After a lot of thinking and discussions with some of you, I have decided to install a water pump in my Morgan 4/4 1948 (Standard engine). I just moved the car to Miami, and it seems that in this tropical weather a water pump is needed.

I didn’t want to do it, but I think it would be better for the car and I will also enjoy it much more.

I know some of you have already done it, so any advice, tip, brand or model to recommend or avoid, etc……will be very welcomed. I am planning to take the Morgan to the mechanic next week...

Thanks a lot,
Gonzalo

Gonzalo, I would recommend an inline water pump. I have seen some folks run the Davies-Craig pumps but I have no personal experience with them.

I don't know if you are running a dynamo or an alternator, so efficiency may be important. Also consider what happens to the water flow when the power is lost. You want a pump that will continue to allow flow and not block the coolant line when/if power is lost. I have also heard of a need to regulate the flow to ensure it is not excessive to need.

Cheers,
Mark

Gonzalo

Here is the information from my friend John in Oz on fitting a water pump:

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I can advise on this. But first let me say that I've owned my 1949 car for 51 years, drove it as my main vehicle for a while (basically it was falling to bits but still much more reliable than my then new Honda), before pulling it off the road for a long and full rebuild completed in 1989. After that I did use it on occasions as my main vehicle but in more recent times it's been a club car on historic registration, which means that since its rebirth in 1989 it's only covered about 80,000 miles.

I never had any problems with overheating with just the original thermosyphon system even in temperatures over 40 degrees C. There's no shortage of coolant - the system holds around 14 pints which is about the same as my Plus 8. It seemed to sit constantly around 95 to 98 degrees which is quite common for these cars.

However, around 10 years ago I fitted a Davies Craig EWP 80 electric water pump complete with its rheostat controller. It was a tight fit between the bottom radiator pipe and the water inlet manifold on the block, and I had to use a flexible, i.e. concertina-type water hose to clear the engine mount. I've rubber sheeting fixed to shield the hose from rubbing through where it passes over the mount.

The first time I tested it I could not get the thing to run over 50 degrees. The ambient temperature at the time was around 40 degrees! After quite a deal of adjusting of the rheostat I now have it cutting in immediately the temperature hits 80 degrees and the temperature generally stays just below this. I'm still running positive earth with a generator and have never had any problems with load on the electricals. Advice to me is that given the way electricity flows there are certain advantages in positive earth and theoretically at least it gives longer points life.

The reason for the Davies Craig was reliability. At the time a mate down the road had a stove hot racing Plus 8 (used to clean up the Porsche GT3's) with a Davies Craig substituted for the removed original pump. At the time there were some lingering issues with the pump and Davies Craig effectively used him as a guinea pig to sort these out. Subsequently the V8 sedan racing fraternity here pretty well universally went to these pumps after experimenting with various others which simply didn't cut the mustard.

I seem to recall that a mate in Western Australia was using just the small booster pump in his Series 1 and was very happy with it too, but I haven't spoken to him about it for a while.

Trust this helps you an your mechanic

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