Does anyone have any idea how ive come up with two different sized (stock to the best of my knowlage) oil pump drive rods??? one is out of a frankenstein motor( 4 different years worth of parts and one is a stock 65 motor?????? this is confusing to me!!!! i dont have the stock distributor from the 65 but do have the cv2 distributor out of frankenstein...

my suspecion is that there are two different lengths due to different oil pumps. I will check my book and confirm there are different part numbers. From personal experiance, I used a stock shaft to drive an FE high pressure pump(Melling 55HP) but needed an extra bit to use an FE high volume-high presure pump. I would first look closely at the oil pump and determine what it is then determine which oil pump shaft is correct. You might want to invest 30 dollars in a heavy duty shaft while you have it apart. TJR

Oil pump number is melling 57HP. There are different oil pumps but I can only find one oil pump drive shafts. TJR

To my knowledge there is only one length of rod for the MEL. There were in fact different oil pumps (1 wtih vacume and 1 without), but both used the same rod that I know of. The FE rod is identical except it is 3/16 shorter. The 427 HP FE had a special pumpand the rod may be different again. AS to a HD rod for the MEL? There is none. I used a HD rod from an FE, and milled off the pump mounting surface by 1/8th and moved the drive gear on the distributor up 1/16 inch and it works great.

You are correct. I did buy the oversized heavy duty FE shaft and took a little off it. Fits perfect. TJR