For my own curiosity, what is the coolant capacity on your thunderbird with the 445?

Is your crank pulley equal or bigger than your fan pulley?  Going from an under drive crank pulley to a direct drive made enough improvement for me.

Hate to point fingers but...might want to install them yourself next time.  Maybe the "new" guy installed the bearings for you.

If you have space, a cheapo harber freight shop press works fine to install.

Only leaking issue I've ever had was pre-bent and pre-flared stainless steel lines.  I believe that was due to the hardness of the stainless steel.  Tighten, loosen, retighten the leaky connections about 20 times stopped the leaks.  I would not flare that myself because it requires annealing to prevent cracks. 

I normally use the EZ bend copper nickel line.  It's the easiest to bend and flare and it's very resistant to road salt. 

I realize you're half way into it and I'm kinda late, but some rental places have "concrete buggies".  Gasoline powered and haul about 1/4 of a yard per trip.  They'll haul from the street to the backyard and such.  Sometimes concrete delivery trucks charge you if you move too slow so have a helper.

We have a 2kw Honda.  It’s the cats meow.  It’s very quiet, easy to move, and easy to maintain.  Use it mostly camping and it will run the house refrigerator or furnace…probably enough for many people.

We also have a 6kw diesel.  It’s easy on fuel, is a solid work horse, and I feel safer with diesel jugs than gas jugs.  But…it’s dang loud and I wouldn’t even consider getting it if I didn’t have a few places to work off old diesel.  I’ve started it in 10 degrees but I am not confident I could start it in sub zero temps. We have it wired to run the whole house except the AC and dryer.

Parents have a 15 kw pto driven that runs on their tractor.  It cost less than my diesel generator because it does not have its own engine.  It runs the whole house…water pump, electric water heater, dryer, etc.  Great if you have enough tractor.

Our house and parents have double throw knife switches to separate generator and power company making it impossible to back feed. 

I cannot speak to the hp savings though I found out an underdrive pulley caused my wipers to move slow while sitting at stoplights with the headlights on.  Also, the coolant warmed up a little at stoplights on hot days.  Since I have a truck and not racing, I replaced the underdrive crank pulley with a larger pulley.  Now the coolant stays the same or cools slightly idling and the wipers maintain speed with the lights on while idling. 

If I remember correctly, my crank pulley and water pump pulley are now 1:1. 

I like my roller for a couple reasons
- Provides freedom of oil choice.  Call me crazy but my economy went up 0.5 mpg switching from a top name hi zinc oil to a modern synthetic blend.
- Hope others can chime in here but I feel my roller provided a broader power band than my older flat tapped engine had…excellent near idle grunt and respectable upper mid range hp (over 1 hp per cube) from the same cam.