Thanks Everyone for the responses, so far. Using the already adapted water pump would be great. I'm really strapped for cash and anywhere I can save a buck is awesome. That's one of the reasons I do so much shopping at the junkyard.
I do have another question about the water pump setup, though. I read in other threads here that the stock harmonic balancer from the passenger cars was too large a diameter for use in our trucks. Is that because it spins the fan too fast or is there some issue with cavitation of the coolant? If I go down the electric fan path, then the speed of the old fan is no longer an issue, as it will be removed. Cavitation is another issue though. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
I recently read the post that Deve made regarding rebuilding a 235. It was very timely as he has a whole section on drilling out the motor mount plate. It looks very complicated to get those holes in the right place. I'm still wondering if doing the motor mount plate swap might be easier. It also seems clear that doing the drilling from underneath is a non-starter. So I'll have to do something like turning the engine on its side or maybe upside down.
Anyone tried to do the drilling with an intact engine?That's all I can think of right now. I'll ask some more questions about prepping the truck/engine as I think of them. Once again, thanks for the help and ideas. Also, thanks for the compliment on the blog. I'm trying to document what I do/what happens as I do it. I'm a total noob when it comes to all of this. So for me, everything is a learning experience. I'm hoping that down the line, someone else like me (a noob) will be able to read my blog and get ideas about what worked and what didn't. Maybe save them some time or frustration. I'm not planning to make it anything fancy, just informative (hopefully).
