ultraviolet70

I know quite a few people on here have done the A/C and air pump delete, and I know some people have had problems with the bracket and/or alt case breaking, to hopefully provide a little insurance against this I did some extra fab work. I made some spacers out of aluminum rod drilled and tapped them and fitted them in the alt bracket drilled 4 holes in the bracket made some custom washers and bolted it all together, this should add some structural rigidness to the bracket. With the Hooker 2151's and this setup I also had to fab my on rear alt support which I did this out of 1/2" steel rod.

jerkyboy

That looks fantastic. I am currently fabbing a rear brace as well. I left it off on my last build and I went through 3 alts. What alt are you running? It seems as though they fly apart on the inside if I go over 6500 rpms

Weav's Vet

If you don't mind, can you tell me where you got those insulators for the plug wires?

Also, I recently put LTs on my '96. It had 2 braces on the back of the Alt. I left the most vertical one off. It went to the back bolt on #1 exhaust tube. Do you think this will cause a problem down the road?

That bracket is sweet!

mseven

That looks good, although I never had an issue with the p.steering /alt. bracket I think the back alt. brace is what helped mine. I remember when I did the build the first time around many here said they were breaking alternator cases. I made a rear support then and fortunately I have had no alternater case failures over the last 4years.
If I can ever find a true bolt in manual rack that OEM bracket will be gone (along w/power steering), and I will make a dedicated alt. bracket.

ultraviolet70

Alt is just an AC Delco oem replacement. The rear brace actually wasn't too difficult. I used 1/2" steel rod I picked up at the hardware store. I was amazed that with just a normal propane style torch head you get almost anywhere and using it with MAP gas I was able to get the steel rod hot enough to not only make the necessary bends, but hot enough to flatten the ends out. Then using a grinder I slotted the ends to go over the bolt/studs.

ultraviolet70

The plug wire insulators came from Summit, but you can find them almost anywhere. Here's a link to some a Summit

http://store.summitracing.com/egnsea...15&Nao=0#rstop

I haven't heard problems with the Alt or brackets on the LTx engines, but if your worried I'd say fab up a bracket shouldn't be too difficult.

Thanks for the compliment.

ultraviolet70

I know alot of people have not had problems, but I figured what the he!! didn't take to long, it gave me something to do and figured if it doesn't help it shouldn't hurt it either. I think your right though the most important is rear brace. I thought about the manual rack as well, but I can't imagine trying to turn the 275's on the front at low speed without assist.

What I really thought about doing that would balance out the look of the engine compartment, plus move some weight to the pass side of the car is relocate the alt to the pass side with an adjustable mount for setting tension, return to reverse rotation WP and switch to standard rotation P/S pump, but sounds like more work, more parts (therefore more money) and most importantly what I've got right now works.

mseven

No it won't hurt anything, and I 'm sure it will add strength.
Manual steering would be harder to turn, but every hot rod I had in the past had manual. To me parking was the only byatch.....this just gives me another reason to keep skiinies on the front all the time.

Speaking of moving things, and if I keep the P.S., I would really like to do this, unfortunately it will have to wait:

M.J.L.

How would a air pump eliminator kit allow it to break or are you guys referring to just using a brace and not using a pully from breathless/tpis/midamerica?

ultraviolet70

Look at the pics in the first post, no Air pump or eliminator no A/C

I think as Mseven said though most important when going to the turnbuckle adjustment for the alternator is making sure you have a rear brace on the alternator.

ultraviolet70

That looks like nice set-up, but I think with the right accesories and brackets you could keep them on the same plane and use on serp belt.

mseven

The first problem was that when using hooker headers the original stock supporting bar that once supported the rear of the alternater could no longer be used. Anyone using these would have to make their own.....some did not and reported problems.
If you did not have the rear support, at that point the only thing offering any real support would be the power steering/alt. bracket. Which in part is why I believe Ultraviolet 70 decided to add some bracing. That bracket is only a cast part and it carries more load due to p.steering and alt. It basically creates strength through it's design (triangular), width, and it's connecting points which ties everything directly to the block. The additonal support from rear of the alt. ties it to the block in another loaction and helps the alt. from flexing towards the rear of the car.

mseven

I think that is possible too, (as you mentioned w/reverse rotation pump) when I was looking at this I found nothing readily available. My conclusion was I would have to make all the brackets. to make it work. Then I saw that package in the GMP book, said that's it.........then I saw the price.$$$$$