Old Chevy Blue for the New Water Pump

Earlier this summer, I found out that the water pump that came on the junkyard engine had given up the ghost.  It was squealing and leaking when I started the engine.  I bought a new, short shaft one almost immediately after discovering the need.  However, it was summer and the heat and humidity made it almost impossible to do any real work in the garage.  So it sat and waited for me.  I knew that I'd have to paint it, as it came from the online retailer in bare cast iron and looked like this:

You know it couldn't possibly go in the truck like that.  It would take all of a day before it was completely rusted.  In this pic, you can see a bit of wadded up newspaper sticking out of the heater hose connection points.  This was to keep paint out of the inside of the pump.  Since the anti-freeze has rust inhibitors in it, I figured no paint on the inside.  So the underside got masking tape and looked like this:

The area that I masked off included the area that will get the gasket.  I guess I could have painted that and the gasket would have adhered just fine, at the time, I went for masking.

Then, I used the Duplicolor VHT primer and paint.  For the paint color, I went with Old Chevy Blue, as that is the color of the junkyard engine.  As you may recall, the engine came out of a 1961 Chevy Impala and is a 235 inline 6.  That engine was painted Chevy blue from the factory, so instead of trying to hide it by painting the engine Chevy gray like an original 1953 engine would be painted, I am celebrating the origin of the junkyard engine.  So, Chevy blue it is.  Here's a shot of the water pump while drying in the garage:

The lighting is a little weird, so the color looks a little washed out in this pic, but looks much better in this next pic, which shows the underside of the pump with the masking tape removed.  It looks like this:

So there it is, ready to be installed.  On a side note, the pump was purchased from Jim Carter Trucks. I was a little bummed that it came in bare cast iron with no paint or primer to keep it from rusting. However, I was pleased to see that it came with the appropriate gasket and 2 plugs for the heater hose openings.  If I choose to hook up a heater, I would use the correct heater hose nipples.  If I don't want to hook up a heater right away, I can use the plugs.  Right now, I have not refurbished the heater core, so the plugs will go in initially.  Later, when I refurbish the heater core, I'll swap out the plugs for the nipples.  Piece of cake.

That's all for now.