I am in the middle of doing the short water pump conversion to my 1957 235 engine. Can anyone who has done this tell me how thick the adapter plate is? The plate I bought is about 1/8 thick which is roughly the same thickness of the plate you remover from the pump. I am starting to think a thicker plate say 1/4" would be better and I was honestly expecting that because I thought I read the pump would sit a little closer to the radiator than normal. What bothers me about the thin plate is the two holes you drill in the engine has an 1/8 gap to the engine. If you tighten the bolts too much it will possibly bend the plate and water pump and cause a huge leak. The other thing that bothers me is they want you to bolt the plate to the pump in a way that two bolts are inside the engine. This bothers me because it may be tricky to seal, also impossible to retighten the bolts without removing the pump. I always like to retighten the bolts after a few hundred miles. If the plate was 1/4 thick those holes could be threaded. Just a few thoughts I had about this conversion process. I think the 1/8 plate will work I just need to be conscience of the gap to the engine and also I am considering tack welding the bolts to the inside of the adapter plate so that I can retighten them. I was also curious maybe I just got cheaper version of what the adapter plate should be.
