396 stock oil pump?

[William B.]

Need a oil pump for my 65, 396 rebuild, does gm still make a pump or should I use the melling pump and change the spring. I do plan on pv,ing the car.

[Dick W.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Just order a standard Melling pump, M 77. Should have the lower pressure spring

[Joe L.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Need a oil pump for my 65, 396 rebuild, does gm still make a pump or should I use the melling pump and change the spring. I do plan on pv,ing the car.

Bill-----


GM does not currently offer an oil pump for your application. Your application originally used a high pressure pump. As far as volume goes, it's possible that 65-66 with SHP originally used a high volume pump (even though GM replacements after about 1968 were standard volume). In that regard, if you have an original pump, what is the length of the gears?

Are you sure you need a new pump? Many are re-usable. Open it up and post photos of the innards and we may be able to advise.

If you do need a new pump, I'd go with an OEM-quality Melling #10774.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

William,

I agree with Dick in that the Melling is a very well made oil pump but if the original pump is in good condition which I bet it is, that would be my first choice. There is a discussion about these early big block pumps in the archives that may help if you take time to research.

[William B.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Thank you everyone, will look for the original pump tonight

[Jack H.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Just a heads up about Chevy Oil Pumps. The Melling M-xx (M-77, M-55, M-55A, etc) series pumps are not what they used to be. They changed the casting some time ago and removed some material. I do not like the new castings. They may be just fine in a street car, but I still don't trust them. I second Joe's suggestion of using the Melling 10xxx (10774, 10553, etc) series pumps as these retain the beefier castings like those that came in our cars back in the day.

See pic below showing old casting (bottom left) versus new casting (upper right) for the M-55A variation (M-55A vs 10553):
DSC01152a.jpg

[John H.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Melling tech told me yesterday that they went back to the good 10553 casting (instead of the lighter failure-prone casting) for the M-55 pump about a year ago.

[Joe L.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

Melling tech told me yesterday that they went back to the good 10553 casting (instead of the lighter failure-prone casting) for the M-55 pump about a year ago.

John------


Did they give any indication of how an M-55 now differs from a 10553? The 10553 costs about twice as much as an M-55 so I assume there must be some differences.

[John H.]

Re: 396 stock oil pump?

John------


Did they give any indication of how an M-55 now differs from a 10553? The 10553 costs about twice as much as an M-55 so I assume there must be some differences.

Joe -

No, I didn't dig any deeper with him - he just said that they have returned to using the previous M55 casting we've known and loved for many years, and are no longer using the lightweight rib-reinforced casting.