I can take take pics of my setup if you want. It might come in handy.

 

Please do!

 

Gary, if you could mount the tensioner in the general area the smoke grinder used to occupy and possibly use the original tensioner as an adjustable fixed idler would that work? Advantage would be no long straight run to vibrate in a harmonic from that antique A/C compressor. Big issue, automatic tensioners are normally on the slack side of the belt, between the drive pulley and the last driven if possible. On Darth, it sits on the belt between the water pump pulley and A/C compressor. The water pump also has the alternator belt around it so using it to provide an extra alternator drive would probably work.

 

That might work. But the goal posts don't lend themselves to mounting a tensioner. Anyway, let me think this through and see what I can come up with. And, I wasn't aware of the automatic ones being on the slack side. That's good to know and I can see how you might get into a problem otherwise.

 

Gary, specific example, look at a mod motor (that's an M isn't it ), the belt in order of what it drives, comes off the crank, reverse wraps around the water pump (first driven device) drops down and left to pick up the power steering pump (second driven device) comes from there up to the alternator on top center (third driven device) drops all the way down on the right to the A/C compressor (fourth driven device) then up over the tensioner and back down to the crank. There is an idler and sometimes two on one or both of the long runs to eliminate belt flutter.

 

Believe it or not those mod motors are pretty solid.

 

Bill - Yes, the 351M is a "Mod" motor. But the 400 was never called Modified by Ford, so I guess it isn't.

Anyway, while that is one convoluted route for the belt, it does prove your point about long runs and idlers. So I need to mock this up and see if I can get an idler closer to the alternator as the original idler is quite close to the A/C compressor, which leaves a long span of belt to gallup. Thanks.

 

The 5.4 is the one used in the GT40. The standing mile records are from these motors.

 

You're not telling me anything new, my brother sold a friend of mine a 2003 E-250 with a 5.4L. It now has over 600K on it and the furthest it's been into is a water pump when I replaced the radiator. Water pump was a preventive replacement along with the hoses.

 

Well, I didn't get much "shop time" today, but I thought I'd swap alternator mounts 'tween Rusty and Dad's engine. Didn't work. Turns out the stock head on Rusty isn't drilled/tapped in the outboard position. But, of course, I didn't discover this until I had everything loose and off - including the one bolt that's under the water pump pulley, which requires that it come off, which means the fan has to come off, which means the P/S belt has to come off.

And it was at that point, when I was trying to put the other mount on, that I discovered that the outboard hole is drilled nor tapped. I tried lots of alternatives and scoured my stash, to no avail. It wasn't going to work. So, since Rusty has a date to haul a whole neighborhood's trash on Saturday it all had to go back together. And, I'll have to find another alternator mount (EOTZ 9B450-A) and the associated adjustment arm (EOTZ 10145-B).

The bracket starts out looking like this:




And ends up looking like this:

 

Dang! Where are you going to get that?

 

Dunno, but I'll post it in the junkyard wish list. And do a bit of Googling.

 

Looks like mine. Do you have an alt bracket that'll work on the stock heads?

 

Yes, but it relocates the alternator up a bit. I was using it on Dad's engine before I started this resto. Oh yes, and it requires the outboard hole to be tapped. Apparently Dad's heads were, but Rusty's aren't.

It is shown here in post #828.

 

Gary, I guess the dumb question is why did you chop it up before determining if it was going to fit? I know I ran into similar bracket issues on mine, but that was a case of different size holes (1/2-13 instead of 7/16-14) and it was on the carbureted heads on the front of the left head. You wouldn't think there were that many variations in the 335 family truck heads considering the relatively short run (1977-1983). Could one of those engines (Rusty's) have older heads, like from an LTD?