After looking at the situation for a bit, without the A/C bracket, the power steering bracket would just be attached to the two rear threaded bosses on the side of the block, instead of the load being distributed across all four. --some trucks probably came with power steering and no A/C but, here is my thinking to make the power steering bracket better supported without the A/C bracket;

I took a piece of 1/4" thick x 2" wide flat bar and cut it into (2) pieces. I butted the two pieces up and spot welded them together. I laid out the same (4) hole pattern of the (4) bosses that are on the side of the block and drilled out the (4) holes in the fabricated plate.

I placed (2) flat washers, per bolt, between the block and the back of the fabricated plate. This puts me back to the original thickness that the A/C bracket took up.

Instead of the PS bracket only being supported by the (2) rear bosses on the block, the plate will distribute the load of the power steering bracket across all (4) of the bosses.

The (rough) fabricated plate shown in the middle of the photo. I still have to finish welding the two pieces of flat bar together, round the corners off, bevel the edges, bead blast and paint it, but you can see the intent of what I'm doing in this mock up.





I think this will solve the problem of mounting the power steering bracket and it'll be much better supported.

 

Way clean amigo.. What are you going to do with the P/S bracket?? If its up for sale, I would haul it South with me, for a future A/C project. Let me know ..

Baja

 

I think you're actually asking what am I going to do with the A/C bracket, instead of the PS bracket?

They are somewhat difficult to find so, I guess I better hang onto it. I don't know exactly how long it will be before I swap engines and I may add A/C before the engine swap occurs.

This A/C bracket mounts the more modern and compact aluminum bodied Ford compressor (sort of like a Sanden compressor). The compressor on my '90 Mustang 5.0L donor engine will bolt directly to the mount at the top of this A/C bracket.

However, I do know where another A/C bracket, for a 240/300 is. It doesn't have any bolts with it or the compressor mount at the top of the bracket. The mount could possibly be sourced through an obsolete supplier and the bolts would be fairly easy to figure out their needed lengths and diameters.

 

I like that bracket idea. An engineer may say it's not necessary but I believe too much is better than not enough. I seem to over-do about everything I do.

 

Yep. I'm not an engineer but, it seemed logical to me. There is some methodology to my madness.

 

Yes, and oops, my mistake, I did mean A/C bracket... well you should hang onto that bracket, as they are getting rare... I keep hoping to stumble across one, that is a complete kit, like the one I let get away from me, about 2 years ago. At the time, I was living in Eureka Ca, where A/C was not needed.. ever...

Some day, in a land far far away, I may find one..

baja

 

I got the front cover gaskets/seal from the parts store late this week and got the front cover put back on today.


I got the brand new (300) 3 groove harmonic balancer installed in place of my 240's old 2 groove balancer.



I got ready to put the (300) 3 groove water pump pulley on (replacing the 240 single groove pulley), only to discover the 3 groove is too deep to fit on the water pump shaft.

My 240 water pump has a thickness of 3-5/8". I need a water pump that's 4-5/16". I'll have to get a new water pump to put the 3 groove pulley on before I can get back to the point of putting the power steering system on.

 

Since I found out yesterday that my 240's water pump is too short (3-5/8" version) for the 3 groove water pump pulley (I have to get a 4-5/16" water pump), I decided to move on with installing the power steering pump, instead of waiting to put the PS pump on after I get the water pump situation squared away. The water pump can be changed without interference of the PS pump/brackets being installed so, no sense waiting to install the PS components.

I finished dressing up the (4-hole) plate I made, to bolt in between the block and the long PS pump bracket. I rounded the point of the corners off the plate, chamfered the bolt holes, smooth the sharp edges and painted it Ford engine blue to make the plate a little less noticeable --sort of 'camouflaged' it, I guess you could say.



I mounted the aluminum bracket to the pump then installed the pulley. Prior to mounting the bracket, I chased the threads on the newly - rebuilt PS pump and the threads of the bolts. I applied Anti-Seize to the bolt threads just prior to assembly. --it's very important to coat the threads when threading steel bolts into aluminum. Steel and aluminum are incompatible metals. Without coating the threads, the two metals can chemically weld themselves together.

The bracket has to be mounted to the pump before the pulley goes on or, you won't have enough room to install the bracket-to-pump bolts. --these (3) bolts are metric --10 mm x1.50 thread pitch. The remaining bracket bolts are SAE.



The Ford C-2 PS pump and brackets mounted on my 240.





....now, if the rest of the engine, and everything else under the hood, was as clean....

 

I got the PS pressure & return lines run between the pump and the Saginaw PS gear box. The pressure line is the line on the left, in the following photo. Except for the 90-degree bend on the end of the pressure line, the hard line section of it was straight. I had to take a 5/16" tubing bender and bend two 'kicks' in it to curve it around the brake valve.



This finally put me back to the point where I had left off ...running the brake lines.

I picked back up by beginning fabrication of the line for the rear brakes. I started with a 60" stick of 3/16" brake tubing.





The fitting for this line, on the back of the valve, is the largest of the Ford fittings I've seen. I think it's a 5/8"-18 inverted flare fitting for 3/16" tubing and I haven't seen a listing for these (new) from Classic Tube. It takes a 5/8" flare nut wrench. I had to reuse this fitting from the other Ford Weatherhead brake valve I have.

I used two Adel Clamps to attach the brake line to the valve mounting bolts. This will give the line better stability and reduce vibration and shock on it.





Now that I have it fitted up, I'll have to take it back off, slide the Armor Guard on, put a 7/16"-24 inverted flare fitting on the other end and double flare the tube. I'll have to use an inverted flare union (Edelmann 123400 302 x 4) to connect this line into the existing line going to the rear brakes, --where the existing line was taken loose from the drum/drum pressure differential valve inside the left frame rail. The fitting, I have to tie into on the existing line going to the rear, is 7/16"-24.

 

Looks real nice, Steve. Good work!

 

Thanks, Bobby. ...Two and three - fourths brake lines down, two and a quarter to go then, it's back to the water pump situation.

It's been a long day today. Time to kick back before going to bed and then back to work in the morning.

 

No brake line work this evening but, I did go by NAPA as soon as I got off from work and ordered the (new, not rebuilt) 4-5/16" mounting height water pump. It'll be here tomorrow.

I figured while I was taking stuff off the front of the 240, I might as well put a new (195-degree) thermostat in. When I took the T-stat housing off, I found a LOT of crud that had the heater hose passage severely restricted.

I got the housing cleaned up, bead blasted and painted. While I had the housing off, I took a chamfering bit and chamfered the openings of the water passage to the heater hose.

This probably won't add 10 hp to the mighty 240 but, it will make the transition of the water flow through it much smoother. I'll probably find that the heater works a lot better, now that the passage isn't so restricted.

 

I went to NAPA this evening and picked up the new water pump I had ordered yesterday. (True Flow p/n 42070).

Comparison of mounting heights; old pump (3-5/8" mounting height) for the 240 on the left. New pump (4-5/16" mounting height) on the right.



240 single groove water pump pulley on the left. 3 groove 300 water pump pulley on the right.



Didn't get much done this evening. I just got the new pump painted before the wife got home and we went to vote.

I've gotta get this bad boy and the thermostat put back on then, I can get back to running the remaining brake lines.

 

Glad to see it's a quality one from the aftermarket Steve. Notice the shaft and bearing diameters. Also a stout housing rather than a cheesy one like I've seen on various aftermarket pumps. Cool.

 

I got the water pump, the 3 groove water pump pulley and the thermostat/thermostat housing put back on the engine this evening.



I also got the 7-blade fan/fan clutch put back on.



I also discovered my power steering pump pulley is going to line up with the middle groove on the pulleys. This isn't going to allow me to run dual-belts on my 3G alternator --since I swapped out the single groove alternator pulley to a double groove pulley, while I have been working on all this.

I measured the valley-to-valley distance between the grooves of the pulleys and cut a spacer out of aluminum to insert at the rear of the (aluminum) upper alternator mounting bracket, between it and the (black) steel bracket at the rear of the upper pump bracket.

This pushed the C-2 power steering pump forward enough to align the PS pump pulley with the water pump pulley groove closest to the front.





I'll have to get two longer 5/16"-18 bolts and make two more smaller spacers to put on the two bolts that attaches the small PS mounting bracket to the side of the timing cover.

By pushing the PS pump forward to run off the front pulley groove, this arrangement will allow me to use the inside and middle grooves to run dual-belts on the 3G alternator.