72 LT1 Waterpump Date

[Joe S.]

I have what appears to be the original Water Pump on my 72 LT1. It is the correct part #3991399. Problem is it has a date code of H301. If the Waterpump is dated August 30, 1971, and the car is a March 09, 1972 build, that exceeds the 6mos cutoff by a little over a week.

If I were doing the judging, I'd say a little lattitude here would be in order, right?

[Robert E.]

Re: 72 LT1 Waterpump Date

Joe,

I may be wrong, but because the date code is generally inaccessible while judging, the water pump date is not judged.

Robert
41801

[Patrick H.]

Re: 72 LT1 Waterpump Date

Robert,

You are correct.

My June of 71 car had an August of 70 water pump on it, same casting as yours. I would not be a bit surprised to hear that these were "batch built," given the low numbers to be used for the year. Think of the 1967 intake manifold scenario, which took until 2004 to figure out!

I would not take off for this at all, if it ever were judged.

Patrick

[Joe L.]

Re: 72 LT1 Waterpump Date

Patrick-----

Yes, I agree. The 3991399 waterpump was a VERY limited production piece. As far as I know, this casting was used for Corvettes ONLY and only for 1971-E72. It's very likely that a supply for a long period was cast up at approximately the same time as a batch.