I received the first box of the rack & pinion conversion parts over the weekend, and so while waiting for the rack and special bracket to ship I figured I'd start test fitting everything I had so far. Not very successful yet.
Part of the reason I ordered everything (rack kit, pump, hoses, pump pulley and pump bracket) from POL was with the thought that by ordering everything from a single supplier I'd have a better chance of it all working together as it should. That does not appear to be quite true in this case.
The first issue is that I received (ordered) the wrong outer tie rod ends. I will take at least partial responsibility for this one. When you order, you need to specify what spindles you have to get tie rod ends to match. The choices are listed as "Drum/OEM disc brake type" or "Disc brake 73-87 type". I bought my truck with the disc conversion already done, and mis-identified my spindles as being the later 73-87 units. I was wrong, and so I got the wrong tie rod ends.
That said, I find it odd that all of the outfits that sell these conversions ask the same question, almost word for word, but none of them give you any clue on how to tell which you have if you aren't sure. The answer turns out to be quite simple, the later 73-87 tie rod ends have 9/16" threads on the swivel stud and use a ⅞" hex nut. The early style is much smaller, 7/16" threads and 11/16" hex nut. If this difference had been noted in the product description when I ordered I would not have ordered/received the wrong parts.
(Side note for future replacement - the early style tie rod ends used with this rack conversion are part number ES415R, which appears to be the normal part for 71-72 C10. The later spindles use ES409R instead.)
The second issue is that despite ordering the pump and pulley together, the pulley and shaft aren't quite compatible. Both parts are for bolt-on pulley with key, but either the pulley hub is too thick or the shaft is not long enough as the Nylock shaft nut provided bottoms out before the nylon lock ring reaches the threads. Like the tie rod ends, this is not a fatal issue, but I'll need to find a locking nut that is shallower before I get this all installed.
The last issue is the most difficult to understand. The pump brackets do not appear to fit my early-80s 305 small block with long water pump. The pump bracket set is said to work on both short and long water pump engines. When I loosely bolt up the whole assembly, the pump is too close to the block. There is not enough clearance for the upper slotted bracket to fit, and the pulley grooves are off by a whole groove (inner groove on the crank and water pump lines up with the outer groove on the 2-groove pulley). Additionally, the upper slotted bracket is supposed to go to the lower bolt on the water pump, but in reality the water pump casting doesn't have clearance at either bolt to mount an additional bracket of this type.
Based on lining up pulley grooves, I'd need to space the pump and brackets about ⅝" away from the block. And I'd still need to do something different with the upper slotted bracket, as there is no where it will fit on the water pump.
It looks like all the other brackets I see offered besides Alan Grove's are essentially the same. Anyone else seen anything like this? Do the Alan Grove brackets space the pump farther away from the engine?
