It's been a while since I put mine together last time and I did measure the back clearance just to see what it was. Unfortunately I didn't write it down so I don't remember for sure but I'm positive it was well more than .025"... if I remember right it was on the order of .100"... The car doesn't run hot. The only reason I'm planning on changing it this time is it keeps spitting out gaskets. I checked the timing cover for trueness and it's within .001"... Never checked the pump for trueness cause it was new but there must be something wrong with it cause it's spit out 2 gaskets.
