New Member So I'm trying to resurrect a solid '68 F-bird that's been in storage for well over a decade. From all I can tell, things have been poorly done by the previous owner.... And the water pump is proving no different.

I pulled the water pump and discovered some real voodoo; all sorts of chunky and gooey junk, poor gaskets, etc. Hopefully you can see some of this in my attached photos.

I have several questions:

Does the 350 have the two rubber gaskets/sleeves at the lower corners of the water pump? There were none on this car.

Does that water pump/timing cover separator plate need to fit closely to the opening of the timing cover? You can see mine has some large gaps in the passenger side. I'm guessing that's not acceptable either.

At this point I'm very anxious about being able to salvage the engine at all. A full-blown removal seems almost imminent at this point, but gosh - if I can flush this stuff out and get the right water pump setup, she ought to make a decent driver.

Compression all measured consistent (on the low side, but consistent), with no weird noises... So my fingers are crossed that perhaps there's still hope for this one.

I'll get this water pump business straightened out and try to make a good decision from there.

What do you guys think? Do I need those water pump sleeves and a new timing cover/water pump separation plate?