My 78 Bronco has power steering, but sometimes you wouldn't know
it. After getting stuck more times than I like to remember, I
decided to get the largest DOT legal tire I could find, 44" boggers
(actually Firestone makes 46's :-)). After installing these tires,
I had a lot of problems steering when stopped at idle. I decided to
replace my PS pump with a ported saginaw pump (looks like canned
ham) from AGR, but I could not find the exact bracket for a
351M/400 block. I found a bracket off a 78/79 Ford E-350 van with a
460 that looked real close. With some modification, it worked out
great. I can now steer the boggers at idle with no problem. Mods to
the bracket are listed below. I had to space it out from the block
in all three mounting places. I used a spacer on the larger bolt.
It is .840 in thick.
For the other two mounts I used thinwall tube (.665 OD/.475 ID) cut
to .910 in length for upper mount and 1.014 in length for lower
mount. Both of the left side mounts needed to be moved slightly.
Using the upper edge of bracket as a reference and assuming all
following dimensions are X-Y in that plane, upper mount needed to
be moved .164 in towards the center of engine from original bolt
hole in bracket. Lower mount needed to be moved .217 towards motor
center of motor and .410 down.
What I did was bolt up the bracket with the larger bolt near pump
and have the tubing sit where it should be when it lines up with
block mounting holes. I then tacked both of them in place and
finished welding them up off the truck. Once they were welded in
place, I redrilled holes using the tube as a guide. Lower hole had
to have metal added (welded in) on the bracket to allow the tube to
be welded on all sides. See how far the new holes are off from the
old one's here.
This is the closest bracket I could find. It was a decent amount of
work, but it fits perfect and works great. I had the ease of
fabbing it up with one of the broncs I bought that had no front
end. It also fits perfect fits fine even with AC compressor still
in place. I'm pretty sure I had to get a different length belt to
allow pump to tilt slightly towards drivers side for perfect access
to fill. Here is the bracket/pump installed. I ended up using
a 17500 size belt. This is with the smaller water pump pulle that
comes with the upgraded cooling. My original pully was larger and
needed a 17510 belt.
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