Hi all,

This is the third set of air pump bracket bolts in less than 2500 miles. This time I replaced with grade 10 & added #1 blue lock tite. The bolts stayed & now the bracket broke in two. As luck would have it, I only had some tables & chairs in the cargo area. The day before I had almost 150 bales of hay & a dual axle 16 foot land scapers trailer behind me.

It's been rattling for the last 500 miles, I thought it was my power steering pump ready to give up the ghost.

I need another bracket. Two bolts go into the block & three hold the air pump. A family member works for NAPA, he says that I need to go salvage yard to get the part.

Is the van & truck part interchangeable? Every E350 that I've seen is gas around here.

Once I've replaced the part what else can I do to stop this defect? Every few hundred miles I have to make sure the bolts are tight. This is a very unsafe problem. Was this a Ford recall problem?

I'm begining to think that the reason this 21 year old van had 123,000 miles on it was because it was off the road most of the time. I've been broke down on the side of the road more in the last three months than in the last 30 years.

air pump bracket needed, please help!
davE350

 

Vacuum pump bracket.
Is the vacuum pump located below the alternator on an E series?

I may have one in my garage.

How far from Parkersburg, WV are you?

 

Hi Dave,

That's amazing! I thought I'd never find this part. The bracket is located below the alt. You're a life saver!

I'm located in Leavittsburg, Ohio. How much do you want for the part? I'm teaching a summer jazz workshop at U of L in louisville Ky. for the next two weeks. I can get my wife to get a check off to you at least to cover the shipping & handling. Let me know how you want this to proceed.

That would be great if this works, I need the van when I get home to pull my horse trailer to pick up a rescue llama in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Thank you,
Dave

 

Let me go make sure I have one, I have a few spare parts from all my motor swaps.

 

I hope you do! I had a great day playing & teaching some great students, that would be icing on the cake for me.

davE350

 

If Dave can't find one let me know. I'm in Youngstown and I'll make a run up to one of my supply yards if I have to. We have one of the greatest around not far from us called Feezles. They have damn near everything.

 

Wow Brimmstone! I had no idea that we had such resources around here. I keep checking to see if Dave finds it.

I would still like to know what is causing the bolts to the block to vibrate lose & snapping the heads off. I does look as if the bracket was cracked for some time by the rust formation in parts of the break line.

Thanks for the reply & interest in helping my situation,
davE350

 

Send me a private message and I'll try to swing by if you need a hand. We used to have many wonderful yards in the area but many have closed do to poor economic conditions. I was outside looking at my truck earlier today and can't see a reason they would come loose. I may pull it off completely to investigate further. The one thought that comes to mind is you have your belt tension way too tight.

 

I have found every bracket on the motor, except the one for the vacuum pump so far.

I am going to dig deeper today if the weather holds off.

EPA regs are causing a lot of salvage yards to send everything to the scrap yard.

 

I know what you mean about the EPA thugs. A couple of the yards I used to deal with got hit by the EPA on trumped up charges. Within two weeks of the EPA showing up they were closed and completely empty.

 

Not to worry Dave,

I bought one on Ebay, it should be there by the time I get back. I just hope it's the right one. I'm assuming that it's the same bracket for all the 6.9 years. I'll keep you posted.

Why would the EPA shut down a salvage yard? Thanks again Dave & Brimmstone, for trying to help me out!
davE350

 

Oil, gas, diesel, battery acid, freon spills from the wrecked vehicles.

EPA disaster area.

If any of the oil products make it to a stream, they can expect a visit in a very short time period.

 

Try in one of the cases it was an official asking for a "contribution" and being refused. I hate to admit it but Dave can back me that we had some slime in office for a while. The feds cleared alot of them out a few years back. A final note of what happened is when the feds cleared house the official was one of the people they nailed.

 

[QUOTE=Dave Sponaugle]Oil, gas, diesel, battery acid, freon spills from the wrecked vehicles.

OK, I see

 

DavE350:

I've got an '89 old Uhaul box van, that has done the very same thing. One buddy said I was a slow learner after tapping the holes and replacing the bolts 3 times- said it was obvious the pump was bad and was doing the thrashing that caused the bolt heads to be sheared. Okay- had new pump installed, and the guy put a pound of LocTite on the bolts. Went 400 miles and the bracket was ripped in half.

Welded it back together with a supporting rod bent around one edge, BUT- the bigger question is: What is causing this kind of load on a lightweight pump that runs off a secondary pulley with little load on it?

My next move is to make a new bracket out of 3/16" steel, but that just means the torque is going to be transferred somewhere else.

I'm somewhat relieved to see that the universe has not singled me out, but I feel for you. I'll post as to my success or lack thereof with the steel bracket, but I'm dang curious as to the nature of the REAL problem. Have you tried adjusting the secondary bracket that the pump bracket attaches to? I haven't yet.

Good luck to us.

Bob Zorba