Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines Stumped?

I've been visiting this site on & off for quite a while, but I somehow never noticed the B board.

Not too observant eh?

I'm hoping someone here can help me with a wee bit of a problem I'm having.

I took the engine & tranny out of my car to redo the front end. While it was out I thought it would be a great time to replace the front crank seal & oil pan gasket and add power steering to the car.

Everything went well, except for the reinstallation of the alternator .

I put the lower mounting bracket bak on the car in the only position that it can go on. Now the alternator pulley is about 1/2 a groove away from the inner pulley on the crank. It seems to be too far back!!! I am using the same crank pulley & alternator that came off the car!

I thought that maybe the damper wasn't back far enough on the engine, but it seems to be on as far as it can go, & it's pulley lines up with the water pump perfectly. The alternator also misses the top adjuster mount (lower part of P/S bracket) by the same amount.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanx

Paul

Could there be a spacer (round tube) missing at one of the attaching points?? Maybe could shim to match using washers?

No offense , but you would'nt be trying to put the alt behind the bracket & maybe it goes in front of the bracket ? Hard to say without seeing the situation live & in person . I'm sure you'll figure it out .

Tom,

No offense taken. I hope it is that simple, but right now I'm at that frustrated point & will find something else to do on the car.

Old,

That was the first thing I checked. Given the way the mount goes onto the engine block, I can't even shim it up.

If I can figure out how to post a picture I'd show you guys what I have. In the mean time I'm going to head over to the park & check out the last car show of the season. I was hoping to drive my car over there, but maybe next year.

Thanx for the input.

BTW, this is a great site. Reminds me a bit of the old Clifford Performance forum. Lots of great help, info & other interesting adventures

Paul

Dear Paul;

Have you checked with the supplier/MFG to see if the part you have, is for the application your using it for??

Sometimes these aftermarket 'custom parts' are for "general use" only.

Good luck.

John,

Everything Ive installed came off the engine previously. The only thing I added was power steering & that came off of another '69 vintage 250.

Paul

When I built my 250 I replaced the water pump.When I was putting the belt on after painting everything and installing motor,installing radiator,grill,and at last the belt..oh no..a miss match.My first thought was that I had put the SPACER on the alt. on the wrong side,but it turned out that there are two different sizes of water pumps for 250 chevys.I took my old one to the parts store and did a cross on the casting number and came up with the right one.If you used the same balancer it has to be the Alt. spacer or the waterpump SCRAP

Scrap,

I wish!

The car still has the same water pump.

I thought that maybe I didn't have the crank pulley/damper on far enough, but the space between the crank pulley & timing cover is around an 1/8 of an inch (+ or minus a few hairs).

I'm going to pick up another alternator bracket this weekend. It would be nice if that did the trick.

Maybe I'll get my car on the road before the snow flies!

Paul

Did you a any time in the process remove the altenator from the mounting bracker?? If so it is very easy to put the spacer on the wrong side of the alt. mounting hole when installing it to the engine mounting bracket.If thats not the case man you have got me stumped too...SCRAP

I don't know your engine at all or how your bracket is attached to the block, but I had a similar problem once (I don't remember what car I was working on)- I took the whole braket off the engine - when I put it back I was able to put it on upside down. It looked OK and I was able to bolt the alternator on, however the the top adjuster bracket was about an inch off as was the alignment of the belt. It's a long shot but maybe the bracket it flipped.

Walt,I agree on the pic taking. My digital camera has been one of the best "tools" I have
ever received from my kids.

Sometimes changing to a double groove alt pulley can help w/alignment problems. Brian

Dear Paul;

You might try looking at a car that has all that stuff.

This worked for me when running the Body Shop. Things were always geting lost, stolen or mixed up. Not to mention destroyed in the collision itself.

Good luck.

Amazingly enough I took a lot of pictures of the car.

Most of them were of the steering, suspension & frame since that was the main reason for the project. Of course I didn't take any of the engine at the time. That would have made too much sense.

I am off to look at another 250 on an engine stand & see where I went wrong.

Funny how the simplest of things can cause the biggest headache isn't it?

Thanx for all of the input. I'll report back when problem solved & a link to some pictures of the car.

Paul