A big issue that I was going to have to face was whether I would be able to move the water neck in the water pump. The pumps for the Camaros and Corvettes exit in the flat spot just below the water neck pictured below, in the flat spot where there is nothing, and sticks straight out. On the truck it goes straight up and at an angle, as pictures. This was already going to be inconvenient because my upper radiator hose connection on the radiator is almost straight in front of this water neck so being at an angle would make finding a hose a bit more difficult, but after I had to move the compressor up top it interfered with the bracketry and now I would have to move it, or find another pump.
Fortunately, I was able to remove this piece. It was a small change, but made a very big difference. I was able to use these tools and get the job accomplished.
Here is the water neck where it needs to be. I didn't drive it back in because I'm going to replace this pump with a new one anyway and also I wanted to keep my options open in case something unforeseen happened with the brackets. I was only testing the removal process on this pump for learning purposes so when it comes time to do the real pump I can hopefully do so without damaging it. I'll use a sealant on the water neck when it comes time to replace it.
Though I had already gone to the scrapyard and bought a large piece of steel for the bracket templates I opted to make the bracket templates from plywood as others have done. I know I'll have a use for the steel in the future. I already had some scrap plywood left over from making my workbench in the garage and the lawnmower shed out back. This ended up being much, much easier, less time consuming and cheaper when considering all the grinding wheels I would have gone through. I have also grown to hate the dust that's created when using cutting and grinding wheels. Aside from getting all over everything in the garage it also gets all over your clothes and in your lungs, even when wearing a mask. Also, wearing ear plugs, a mask, safety goggles and gloves when it's this hot outside is definitely uncomfortable. My brother-in-law's father, Dave, has always been into woodworking so he let me borrow the appropriate tool for the job, a jigsaw.
I used the cardboard templates I made earlier, but parts of them were just rough estimates to get spacing right so I had to do some fine tuning to get everything the way I wanted it. I didn't have a tool that would reach the appropriate areas so I had to stick some cardboard on the end of my tool to get the measurements I was looking for. The ends of this tool stick outward and is used for measuring the interior distances of objects, thus necessitating the cardboard.
I also couldn't find a single one of my compasses so I had to stop by the store and buy one. All they had were plastic ones. I hate the day we live in where nothing is made of metal anymore. If you weren't careful, this thing would actually bend and distort the pattern. It also had a "safety" point on it because apparently children today and too stupid to not stab each other with them and then have their parents sue the company.
I used the cardboard templates to get rough estimates and then fine tuned those with the compass, using the cardboard for alignment with the placement of the bolt holes. You can't see them in this picture but wood is nice because you can write measurement notes all over it in pencil.
I had never used a jigsaw before, but this thing was great. I used two separate blades, one for the straighter areas and one for the sharper turns. It would have taken a million cuts with a million angles and endless grinding to get a piece of metal into this shape with the tools I have available. This was an infinitely better way to do it.
Here's the first one bolted up.
Dirt dobbers had gotten into a few of the bolt holes and I couldn't get bolts to thread into them. A couple of them were actually covered completely over. I used a small sharp tool to clean them out the best I could and then had to buy a 10-1.50 metric tap to chase the threads because all of my tap and dies are standard.
I lowered the final height of the compressor several inches compared to the initial design I had made with cardboard because it was far too high. Though it would have fit under the hood, it would have been close. When I took the few inches out of the height something apparently went wrong and my rear bracket holes no longer lined up so I had to mark them again. There may be a smarter way to do this but the only way I could think of at the time was to put some black grease around the holes and then push the cardboard up against it.
Then it was on to making the outline for the 2nd bracket. I used the top part of the 1st bracket I made as a template for the top part of the 2nd bracket because I wanted them to look the same. Surprisingly I found that the bolt holes for the front of the compressor did not have the same spacing as the bolt holes for the rear of the compressor. They weren't far off, but enough that I couldn't use the same template to mark the hole locations.
After getting all the holes drilled and the templates cut out I had to do a little fine tuning. When I put the spacers behind the templates it caused some interference I hadn't accounted for but with a little trimming they fit like they should.
I believe I'm going to raise the compressor 1/2" on the final product. This will allow room in the future when I make my custom valve cover covers. I'm going to use old small block Chevrolet valve covers and mount them over the existing valve covers to enhance the overall appearance and make it look more like an old school motor.
Here are the spacers. The design isn't completely finished. I'm going to have one of the bolts go all the way through both brackets for added support and I'll have a long spacer for the bolt to go through. There are also two spacers missing because the parts store didn't have enough in stock.
Next will be getting the tensioner and idler pulley added.
In the end, this is hopefully how the belt will run. The red line indicates the path of the belt and the blue line indicates how the tensioner will effect the path of the belt. I used this picture to pose the question of where to mount the tensioner so that it does not cause too much, or too little, tension on the belt.
