Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines Where to Locate an A/C Bracket for a Chevy 250?

Where to Locate an A/C Bracket for a Chevy 250?

I am looking for an A/C Bracket for my current rebuild, a 250. when I bought the car, there was an existing A/C bracket that used 2 head bolts (driver side) to secure the bracket in place. After a blown head gasket recently and when the head was pulled, A crack on the front drivers side hole is seen. The threads are stripped in this location and there is a crack that is to the front of the engine, this is also the place where the blown head gasket occurred. Since this is my daily, I JB welded a stud in place and made the necessary repairs. 1,000 miles later, it is holding up okay, though there is a small coolant leak in the vicinity, gee, I wonder where it could be coming from.

Long story short, while I am driving on the current cracked block and the rebuild is underway, where or what to use for an A/C bracket that will not use head bolts?

In 74-75 the factory mounted the A/C over the distributor. The HEI distributor at the time used an external coil. Hope that helps a bit.

Larry

I really like the Passenger side mount bracket that Old air has it is not big an obtrusive like alot of them.

http://www.oldairproducts.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=60000000_69000008&products_id=3463

Larry is right, if you have the coil mount dist cap, you will need to get new plug wires and a new cap for an external coil. You can still use your same coil though, just need to find/fabricate a brackets to bolt it to the side of the engine. Here is a pic of mine (ignore that idiot bracket tho, it never worked)




Hope that helps!

I also mounted my A/C on the passenger side with a home built bracket. Have many pics but don't know how to post here. My quest is to run an A/C AND a power steering pump. The layout of the pulley system and the 2 goove balancer will not work for me. I need a way to get a third drive pulley off the crank. Has anyone used the three holes in the face of the balancer to mount another pulley? I also plan to drill and tap the crank to help secure the pulleys. Any ideas on this would help. All my car guys are telling me to pull the inline and get a real motor. They just can't "feel the love". Thanks

beltfed:
i mounted a home-made pulley using the 3 holes in the balancer.
i don't remember the bolt pattern, but i'm sure i recorded it somewhere, i can look it up tonight if you need it.
pappy

Wingnut, you didn't say what kind of compressor you have. For that matter, what distributor do you have? The Oldair bracket that Thomas linked to, is for the Sanden. It uses two bolts in front of plug #1 and two bolts between plugs #2 and #3. I believe it requires a small point dist or the remote coil HEI as Thomas has pictured.
The bracket Thomas has pictured, looks like it is high enough to clear a coil-in-cap HEI. That bracket would need extra braces, solidly welded to it that extended back to the second set on bolt holes by plug #3.
The factory AC brackets for the A6 or the R4 compressors are HUGE. They bolt to the head, the motor mount bolts and the front of the block, forward and below the oil filter. It even requires a different lower radiator hose.

beltfed, you went over your pulley problem a month ago. Go to a junk yard. Find a '70s-early '80s, Olds, Buick, Pontiac or Chevy with straight six and AC. It should have the pulley. If your balancer is good and tight, don't worry about the crank bolt. Just use the three hub bolts.
You can't see it in this picture, but my homemade bracket extends back to the second set of holes by plug #3.

Chopper40 has a thread in the Electrical section with many pictures of his AC bracket. His is very clean and similar to the Oldair bracket.

My Sanden Mount on the 292

Richard J,
I've tried the local yards to no avail. I have also searched such sites as "NAPA", "Rockauto" and others but have not been able to locate the pulley. I admit that not knowing what models came with inline 6's and A/C has hampered my task. I will continue my search in silence. Thanks

In addition to the crank pully, you will also need the water pump additional pulley too. Keep in mind that early harmonic balancers are more shallow, and later models (post 1975?) have thicker ones, this can mees with your P/S and AC belt alignment. (Like you needed more to deal with eh?) I've been there.



That AC bracket I first posted in the pic is what my dealer of the AC unit supplied to me and it totally did not work. It completely blocked the water outlet, and was unusable. I just wish I had the $85 for the Old Air bracket. I have one on my engine now that is home made.

https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbth...=true#Post41862

I have a two groove water pump pulley. The alt belt does not go over that pulley.

I really like the Old Air bracket that someone had the link of. However, the a/c is currently set up with the hoses running on the drivers side. They are not long enough to go along the firewall and up the drivers side. I don't know what king of project running a new set up going to the passenger side of the engine would be. The bracket, now removed and in my garage is indeed homemade. IT used 2 head bolts, 2 water pump and a brace going to a intake bolt.


Somewhat off topic, but when the head was pulled to investigate the blown head gasket, this is what was found. The threads were stripped down to nothing and you can also see some spider web type cracks leaving the hole. This is the same head bolt location 1 of the 2 were used to secure the a/c bracket.

p.s. this is the original 35+ year old engine in the car. Now that I am rebuilding a different 250, I can set it up pretty much anyway I want.

I just found this picture of the original 250 (dirty old engine)with the a/c on the drivers side. This is what the set up was before the blown head gasket.

Take a look in Leo Santucci's Chevy Six Cylinder book, pgs 14-15. That hole is prone to fail, particularly on the 250. Placing anything under head bolts is generally frowned on with any engine.