Well, I'm going to eat some of my words right now. It turns out the tubing assembly came from Jim Carter, not NAPA. My old man got it, and he still has the receipt.
I removed the outer fitting and took out that teflon "rope" I put in there. I shined (shone?) a light in there, and it's evident the inner fitting had done its job. There's a slight ridge on the tubing where it compressed on it. Like I said, though, the leak appeared to be in the threads. Whatever I use as a substitute for white lead SHOULD do the trick.
Replacing the water pump was another exercise in futility. I DID get this part from NAPA, and mounted it without trouble. however, when I put on the fan blade I noticed that the bolts seemed to be going in awfully far. Thinking I was wrong, I lowered in the radiator and noticed I had extremely little clearance.
A brief look down behind the fan blade revealed the problem. The new pump has a cast iron pully, while the old one was stamped steel. The new one is more massive, and has a straight shoulder, while the old one had a rounded shoulder. Sure enough, the rivets from the fan blade were sitting up on the shoulder of the pully, and I was bending the middle of the fan blade in as I tightened it.
I started the "fix" by attempting to file off the inside edges of the rivets, but wasn't having much success, so I got out the Dremel tool and put in some relief channels where the rivets rode on the pully. Much better. Tightening down the fan blade straightened it out as well. I have the original clearance back. The S.O.B. better not leak!
Jed, you are quite the mechanic. I'm slower than molasses. It takes me 15 minutes to take off the acorn nuts. My apologies for doubting you.
Thanks to you all for helping.
