I had my Dad braze my pickup to my oil pump. I did remove the spring and valve. It came out really well. He had to clean up the bottom side of the pump. He used a file to knock off what got on the bottom, then pull out some sand paper and this massive 70 pound granite flat surface(made for this type stuff). He then performed figure 8's on the sand paper to true up the pump surface. Pretty slick to watch him work.

I questioned him on the brass wicking it's way into the pump to cause a blockage. He said he wasn't worried about that, if anything, he was more worried about the flux getting in there....but he doesn't think it did. He said it would not be good for that hard flux to break off and move into the engine(hopefully, the filter would catch it).

The only reason I was concerned about the above is that the pickup moved real easy up and down(when we were setting the pickup angle). The reason it moved easy was that I hit it one too many times installing it and collapsed the tube enough to allow it to move. I was not sure if being that loose would allow the flux to move into the passage.

Any comments on the above?

Here are pics of how it turned out.....

 

Oh, heck. It's at the wrong angle.




LOL. Hope not.


Probably did not need that much brazing, but it looks nice.

 

The dang thing is twisted a little when looking at it from the front. Just the way melling made it. I set the angle by measuring the angle of the old pickup and oil pump bottom on a flat surface(8 degrees). I got the new one spot on in the middle and didn't realize it was twisted until I was 1/8" low on the passenger's side and 1/8" high on the drivers(measuring from the block deck to a ruler laying across the pickup). I think it will be fine(I hope!).

I asked Dad to make sure it would not suck air. Well, I guess it would not suck air(oil), but I didn't want oil to enter at that point.

 

i've always just tacked them on with a tig welder.

 

I just did a short, 3/8" long TIG weld using stainless filler.
I set the height by looking in the oil plug hole with a flashlight in the low oil sensor hole.

 

That dude aint coming off. Even if the angle were a tad off, you can still tweak it a little with some muscle.

 

over kill comes to mind

 

Meh not for an oil pickup.
I brazed mine and tack welded mine and the damn thing still fell off. Now I MIG the damn thing all the way around.

No such thing as overkill for a pickup. Hell I would still put a strap on it just to say I did all I could. I say job well done but I do prefer MIG over brazing.

 

I fabbed a little piece of metal and used a clamp to a housing bolt.

 

Sounds to me like you need your engine rebalanced.

 

I mig'd mine and then added this with some loctite- clamps around the pickup then bolts to the pump body.

 

I think I knocked it loose with a jack under the oil pan when I pulled the tranny. If it were more secure like now, the damn thing would have simply bent and not fallen off. The motor is well balanced.

 

Atta boy.

 

Part number please?

 

If you copy and paste the link for the picture you find this....

http://www.jegs.com/images/photos/55523620b.jpg

So it has to at Jegs somewhere.....so a search "pickup retainer" on jegs gets this(took me a while to figure out what on earth to call it)....

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/store...ickup+retainer

Looks to be item #555-23621 for the LT1.