I have been having over heating issues in my truck since I have owned it. Its a 78 f250 4x4 and the engine is a 1972 460. Anyway, I got a high flow waterpump for it and went to install it today. It has a CVF Racing kit on the front of the engine and thats where I got the water pump. The issue I'm having is where the alternator bracket bolts to the engine. Everything came off ok and when I went to bolt the bracket back on the bottom bolt tightened up then came loose. Great. I took the bracket bak off and shot some carb cleaner in the hole to flush out any goo from the hole. The bolt that was in there was really gummed up with stuff when I got it out. I took the bolt and worked it in and out of the hole and some antifreeze dripped out and a couple of threads came out stuck to the bolt. Cleaned it out again and threaded the bolt back in without the bracket. the bolt threaded in quite a ways. My questions would be, can I use a slightly longer bolt since I can get a few turns in and this bolt goes into the water jacket so what should I use to seal it up? BTW the bolts are stainless and are 5-3/4 inches long. I was thinking getting a 6 inch long bolt and cut it down to 5-7/8 would probably work but want to make sure I get some opinions on this before I go for it. Really trying to avoid taking the pump back off and tapping the hole.

 

If you have tapped into a water jacket, try putting some teflon thread sealant on the bolt before installing it again. This works on head bolts that run into water passages, it should work for you in this instance as well.