Water pumps and heater hoses

[wilkin250r]

My question is more about water pumps than anything. I'll admit, I haven't done all of my own homework yet, but I'm starting the thread anyways.

How do you guys have your heater hoses routed?

From what little I've seen, the short pumps have the main water inlet from the radiator, and also a smaller inlet at 9 o'clock (looking directly at the front of the water pump) that is ideal for a heater hose. This would be ideal, but my problem is I have a long pump, and as far as I know, the long pumps don't have that same smaller inlet on the side.

Is there a brand of long-shaft water pump that DOES have an inlet on the side? Is there an inlet somewhere else that I don't know about (I'm not an expert).

What would I need if I wanted to switch to a short shaft?


I picked up an old beater 79GMC a while back, and it's a slow project. My next phase is getting the heater working. I'm assuming it had an engine swap at one point, and the builder just clipped the lines at the heater core, and never ran any lines out from the new engine. The heater core is there, but the lines from the engine are not, so I'm working with a clean slate.