[hillcogolfer]

Got a little problem and wonder if anyone else has ever run into this and converted over an alternator bracket made for another application?
Putting a 350 Chevy into my '39 Chevy (swapping a newer one in for an older one)....Have a long water pump and want to keep my alternator bracket on the driver side with a high mount (not much engine bay room for a mid or low mount)...the one off my old engine is not desirable to reuse.

The problem is: for whatever reason, there are very few brackets on the market that are "driver side/long water pump" applications....(there's a ton of them for short water pump and passenger side.) The ones that are available (for the long water pump) are pretty expensive....yet alot of the "short water pump" ones are relatively cheap.

For my own reasons I wanna keep the long water pump so....I'm wondering if anybody out there has some personal experience with taking any particular brand name alternator bracket made for a short water pump and converting it to use with the long water pump/driver side setup?

Thanks very much if anybody has run into this same situation and found a cheaper alternative to share.

[delawarebill]

needless to say a bucket don't have room either.. but have u considered using bushings to move the alt forward and still use the short bracket??

[kso]

One of the reasons, originally, for long water pumps was to move the pulley forward on the engine and thus be able to get the alternator tucked in in front of the pass side head which is the further one back. That was seen to be an advantage instead of having it hang out off the driver side, where it won't fit in front as easy and has to be up and out to clear the valve cover, then has a tendancy to crack brackets due to the increased vibration further away from the rotating-mass center. So I don't know why anyone would normally put an alternator out off the driver side when with the long pump you could tuck it in ahead of the pass side head, and I imagine brackets are rare for that.

Of course, that's normally. You have your reasons for putting it where you want it, and with the off-the-driver-side deal you get the added attraction of sixties-vibe. It's always a small let-down for me to see a seventies-eighties pass-side setup on an older car. Of course if you are using a sixties alternator position then you need brackets for the sixties AC compressor position (pass side now...confused yet?) if you're using one and those are even harder to find.

Bottom line is, with all of that, I don't know of any driver-side-mount/long water pump brackets, and the stock cast-iron short water pump ones for the bottom of the alternator to fasten to the head are unlikely to be something you could modify. (The top slotted-strap one would be easy.)

I think you're stuck making one, unless you can find an aftermarket bracket that was made for headers or something and bent from steel strap and could be modified...or chose to go with the short water pump as per the factory plan.

By-the-way, where '68-older drive-side bottom brackets screwed to the side of the head being there wasn't the three mounting holes at the end of the head like with newer ones, there were still short water pumps and drive-side alternators on trucks from '69 'til '72 ( I believe) and they use a lower cast mount that attaches to the end, using those "newer" added bolt holes...maybe one of those could just be spaced forward although it wouldn't look pretty.

[toddalin]

Maybe you could use a right side Header Power Bracket on the left side. This will move the alternator 0.9" forward if used on the left side (the difference between the placement of the left and right cylinder banks).

It won't quite get you there, but it will get you closer. Maybe with right pulley, you can get to where you want to be.




HEADER POWER BRACKET****** - Home

[ogre]

i made all of mine for truk when i put installed a long pump with all short pump brackets.
i did modify the belt tensioner from a short pump but everything else is ogre manufacturing
maybe i'm just cheap.

alternator


ac compressor, looks a little industrial but it works


power steering pump