Alternator Mounts

Here’s a photo of a two bolt alternator mount on the 455 Buick engine in my 31 on 32 rails roadster. Constructed of 1/4" x 1" aluminum bar with 1" OD bushings drilled for the 3/8" mounting bolts. This is a very simple and very workable alternator mount. It does require a 3/16" steel alternator adjuster bracket on the other side as shown, but there wasn’t quite enough adjustment available with the bracket shown. Not to mention that a good solid base for the alternator bracket on the front of the Buick engine is pretty much non-existent. You can see - albeit just barely - a 1/4" x 1" aluminum adapter piece. This is shown in more detail in a following photo.

 

Here is a better alternative for the 455 Buicks, and in fact is a copy of the same setup I use on my 462" Buick powered 32 roadster. Coming up on 41,000 miles with no problems. The 3/8" steel rod for an adjuster bracket works well and combined with the three 3/8" mounting bolts the alternator is mounted very solidly.

 

This shows the top of the alternator mounts adjuster bracket/rod. Made from 1" square with 3/8" holes. All that’s required here is to have the threads run a little further down the rod for more adjustment capacity.

 

Shown here is the Chevy aluminum water pump pulley which is a simple bolt on to the Buick water pump. Only thing required is to bring the alternator back on the mounting bolts to have the proper belt alignment. A Chevy aluminum two sheave crank pulley will be used as well, but the aluminum adapter plate hasn’t been made yet.
The main reason for the aluminum pulleys are the V-belts don’t have much “wrap” around the water pump pulley. The 32 runs a single belt and it’s doing ok, but running dual belts will be considerably better. The 32 has space limitations and a second belt won’t fit. The 31 has quite a bit more room between radiator and engine front, so running dual belts was a given.
The secondary reason for running an aluminum crank pulley is the Buick crank pulley front two sheaves - out of three - are slightly different diameters.
You can see as well the adapter piece for the bottom end of the alternators 3/16" steel bracket. This would have worked well, but will be removed since it’s not required.

 

Another BTTT.