Your lower alternator bracket looks like a chevy power steering bracket. The upper adjustment arm is for a small block chevy alternator or generator. Run a straight edge off of your water pump pulley to see if the alternator is even close to being on the same plane as the rest of your pulleys. Sixties era pontiacs ran the alternator on the other side of the engine, so that might be an option. If you have the alternator on this side for a reason, you might be better off starting from scratch, because the adjustment arm is too short to allow for much belt tensioning anyway. If your dead set on using this bracket, you need to weld up the slotted hole where the bracket meets the block. The alternator will tend to lean back until you fix this problem. And you should probably put a tube inside the bracket at this point, as 4 2 go mentioned to keep from crushing it. Dave
i'd shim the front of the engine about an 1/8 or so then take the rest out of the exhaust manifold, you probably only need about a 1/4 inch clearence there anyways. also if you want i've got a bunch of pontiac generator/alt mounts, i can get a picture and if you think any of them will work i can ship it up to you. isn't pontiac crap fun?
I'd shim the engine up around 3/8 of an inch and get a cutoff wheel in there and nip the corner of the aframe a little bit if possible.
I'd add some washers between the front mount and the frame until you get the clearance needed. Then you can measure what thickness you need for a spacer. Some light grinding on the A arm lip will help some. The nice thing is that the engine will torque away from the arm under load. You really don't need a great deal of clearance. IMHO I've always been a do-it-yourselfer but some times a store bought hot rod alternator bracket can relieve a lot of aggravation. Sometimes it's just not worth it. You might look at stock 389 bracket to see if it can be used or modified slightly. It should get the belt square and straight. I don't think the present setup will fly.
Yo woman!, looks like you got a friction problem there that even KY won't tackle. I'm guessing that you have trimmed off or completely removed the bump stops there. Looks like that front must be bottomed right out. You could have a shaving off the mating face of that manifold, get creative with the die grinder on the manifold itself and then drill out the flange enough to get a caphead in there, would probably gain 1/8 or so from everything. Oh and trim the A arm off a touch to. still think you're going to have to lift it a bit though.
Not sure if this is helpful.....I'm building my wife a Fury. I had a problem with the oil pan laying right on the tie rod connector. I shimed the engine up 1/8th with store bought shims. I haven't put very many miles on the car....it's still being put together but I've haven't encountered any driveline problems. The alternator is off. I agree with the suggestion to use a straight edge.....it also looks as if the alternator is canted at the rear. Unless it's squared up expect squeeling and bearing burn out.
Where are you building it? Maybe I can come over and cut something for ya! Or hit something with a big hammer???!
1. - ARP 12pt head bolt. Much smaller head and will give you clearance. 2. - take a die grinder to the edge of the a-arm and clearance it. As little as possible should be taken off. 3. - Take the manifold off and have it skimmed at the flange. Maybe angle cut to rotate the manifold a bit closer to the engine. Or just change the manifold to a thinner one.
thats what i'd suggest. i would'nt mess with new coils. cars should be LOW anyways . just GRIND SHIT TILL IT FITS!!!
If you do want new coils, check out Eaton Spring. they've got something for just about any car coil and leaf with 1", 2" or 3" lower than stock setups. The spring rate stays factory because they use smaller wire with more coils to keep everything perky.
Might be able to help with one problem, your alternator. It appears in picture the alternator needs to move toward the rear of the car. Make a joggle on both lower legs of the alternator mount bracket moving them forward in relation to the remainder of the bracket in an amount that lines the pulleys . The rear hole on the rear lower leg where the attach bolt to the engine block passes threw appears worn or missing the upper portion of the bolt hole. This looks like its allowing the rear of the alternator to sag, repair the hole to bring the rear of the alternator up for vertical alignment with the drive pulley. It apears in the pictures the alternator belt and alternator pulley are a mismatch. With a load on the alternator slippage will be a problem.
Alternator mounting: Your belt is too wide (but I'm sure you already caught that, but it was worth mentioning). Aside from that, you might possibly straighten the curve on the upper mount to give you a little more tension adjustment and help move the alternator up. I was forced to do this once on a car. You could get a plain steel arm and bend by heating while keeping the gap wide enough for your bolt to still slide. You would wreck the chrome if you did it to your current arm. If it works out, you could then have the arm chromed. The lower bracket as some people have mentioned needs a spacer to keep it square. Looks like the rear hole is too large allowing it to tilt back. A combination of washers, spacers, etc should be able to correct it. Pay attention to hood clearance when you move this alternator up. I didn't pay attention to what you are working on so it might not be an issue. This is all in an effort to move the whole alternator up. However, your alternator is depending on the bolts and belt tension to keep the whole thing from dropping down. As for the exhaust hitting the A arm, the way that arm is curved it would appear that as it moves up, it also moves in. You might have to gain some clearance where the bell housing meets the tunnel so you can tilt the motor on shims. How is the clearance between the steering box? I had a problem just like this on my Galaxie to get headers to fit where I could hardly shim one side to clear the A-arm without causing the other side to hit the steering box.
If you tilt the motor and not the Trans could you shim the rear to get the pinion angle correct again or is it on coils?
I called California Poncho Resto today and spent a LONG time on the phone with their tech dept. If I install new coils, it'll put the nose of the car at stock height.......leaving the rear bumping its ass like a frog on a log. If I install new leaf springs as well, my driveshaft which has been shortened when lowered will have to be lengthed *more like I'll be robbing said driveline from it's brother on the other side of the wall *. I don't REALLY want to go that route since I've got plans to eventually airbag it. So I guess I'mma grind grind grind.
Those brackets are Chevrolet. I've got a whole box full of different Chevy pieces. The original tension bracket is too long because it's made for the generator to run along the side of the block. If I move the alt to the other side, I think I MIGHT have a clearance issue with the battery.........which I can always move.
I'd love you forever and pretend to be your friend in public. As far as the engine rubbing on the a-arm, I think I'll give Tommy's idea a try and shim it. Then get myself a set of pre lowered springs from Eaton *thanx Bozz*, that should solve most of my problemas......or at least I'm going to blindly believe so. Brewsir---its here in Bakersfield, if I'd tow it up to Vallejo, it'd prolly be running by now. I know that belt on the alt is too wide, I used it as a make shift square. If I can come up with something that uses that bolt the lower bracket is in, along with the one directly above it, then I could easily come up with a tensioner..........I think? I can't squeeze it in to it's original place, because there's no room to use the exhaust bolts.
here's a pic of some of those brackets, these should all be for pontiac alt/gen i might have some more but i'd have to dig through the attic to find them, let me know if you think any of them would work
Holy crap! Where to begin where to begin..........I'll give ya a shout when I come up with something.
When you had the engine out did you remove the frame brakets(maybe for cleaning) and maybe get them back in the wrong place? Can you move the engine foward or rearward on the brackets, I cant tell from the pictures if it might help. It also looks as if you are using a power steering bracket as the lower alt. mount
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