Scott,
I'm with you on the T bolts, 50, early 60s, always lose and leaking. 327 should pep that IH right up.. Does the water pump rotation change on the serpentine setup? Vintage Air tells me you;re installing AC, the Frontrunner accessory and serpentine setup. That include the water pump, pretty slick ?
What's locked in the old motor, broke rod, old rusted sitting in the weather, or unknown at present?
Pep
Had a blizzard all day yesterday. Spent the afternoon putting a Vintage Air Frontrunner accessory and serpentine setup on a Chevy 327 that will be going in our '60 IH pickup. Swapped a couple different sets of valve covers onto the engine too just to see what looks good. I'm not a fan of the t-bolt hold-downs, but they are handy for just holding the covers in place when swapping things around.
Scott
Pep, we are not sure what is causing the IH engine to be stuck right now. The Vintage Air kit included a new, short waterpump. And yes, it does rotate "backwards" from a standard pump. Not a big deal since we are going to run a big electric fan. The kit is high quality and its reflected in its price.
But, our heads don't have accessory holes and we would have been purchasing all the accessories anyhow. By the time we would have rounded up accessories, pulleys, brackets etc and tried to make it all work together, it made a lot of sense to bite the bullet and go with a kit that included everything and was engineered properly from the start.
I'm a fan of the IH V-8s and have experienced them in Scouts, pickups and trucks and know first-hand the torque they produce and how bulletproof they can be. In this application though, the Chevy made a lot of sense from a money, horsepower and weight standpoint. Also, I'm not sure how well our Mustang II front end would have liked holding the weight of a big IH 345 or 392.
Scott