The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop P/S Pump--Where to Mount?

After rebuilding a 1978 GMC 250 engine and installing the Clifford Performance manifold and Holley 360 4 bbl carb setup, I decided to swap the engine & trans into comparable vehicle since the body of the '78 was shot. Luckily, I found a 1984 Chevy, Canadian built, that originally had the 250 engine and 3 speed manual column shift. Swap went fine, except the '84 has a power steering gear on the steering column shaft, whereas my 1978 was manual steering. I'd like to buy a p/s pump for the '84 since it is a MAJOR pain to steer manually at slow speeds. Mechanic who did the rebuild says that the p/s pump would have mounted on the original manifold. There are no mounting holes on the Clifford intake, and I know I must mount the p/s pump on the engine somewhere close enough to the engine pulley for the belt to reach it. Any ideas?
Also, would a flex fan increase gas mileage? Neither vehicle came equipped with A/C.

The mechanic is full of it - check out the boneyards - there are plenty of 250s out there with stock power steering brackets. It mounts down by the alternator. A few calls to your friendly local junkyards should turn up the necessary bracket.

Thanks for the tip. I have to go to a boneyard anyway to get an old power steering pump/reservoir to send into LMC truck as a core. They have the hoses and fittings as well, and they are priced cheaper than the auto stores. I have had good success in finding engine and body parts for the '73-'87 series trucks through them. They now have catalogs that go back to 1947 for Chevy trucks and back to 1948 for ***** , as well as some import models if you are interested..they are free. www.LMCtruck.com

I don't know if you know anything about fans and fan clutches for the 250 engines. The catalog indicates that the engines from '73-'77 and '78-'84 had them, but mine didn't; same is true for radiator shrouds. If I install one or a flex fan will it improve mileage and make the engine run cooler? What about a shroud? I found a partial shroud that bolted to the top of the radiator panel at a boneyard (it came off of another '84 and it says "Caution--Fan" but it is not a shroud per se.) The catalog shows a one-piece shroud for '73-'80 and one piece for '81-'87.
Thanks for any feedback!

I Have '78 GMC I bought for parts that has the 250 with power steering. I can take a picture of the set up and post it if it will help.

Somebody may have just taken the fan clutch out - they go bad after a not-very-long period of time. My '77 'Vette doesn't have one, instead it has a solid spacer that is about the same width as the fan clutch. It's been that way since before my dad bought it in '88. You will have a bit less overall drag on the engine with a fan clutch, but I have never noticed any problems on the 'Vette, and a '77 350 is not the highest-performance engine ever to roll out of GM. The fan shroud I don't have any idea about, but almost all GM vehicles I have seen have one. Maybe it was removed with the fan clutch?

All of this has got me to thinking that it MAY make sense to install a fan clutch. As to whether the '78 GMC engine ever had one, I could not say. I do recall my Dad telling me that the head on the engine had to be rebuilt since a second cousin of mine borrowed the truck about 10 years ago and drove it without any radiator fluid in it, or an insufficient amount. I distinctly remember when I inherited the truck five years ago, the blue GMC engine had an orange head on it, that tells me that the head that replaced the original must have come off of a 230 Chevy engine. I never saw a fan clutch ever on the truck, though.
Since the 1984 body that the rebuilt engine was swapped into 2 years ago was a Canadian built truck, the original owner put Sunpro Fº/Cº aftermarket temperature and oil pressure gauges on the dash. The temp guage is reading the engine temp too warm, shows about 240º. I had a radiator shop put a gauge on the block and it read nowhere near that high. This of course, was after I switched the thermostat to 195º vs. the 180º one that is stock!! I'd like to find a Sunpro temp guage that has the Celsius and Farenheit readings on it like the old one, but so far have been unsuccessful.
My goal, like everyone else's, is to have the engine run as long as possible, and for that reason I'm going to install a fan clutch or a flex fan that I see in the LMC catalogs and see if it works.
Any more comments are welcome, and thanks for the tip on where to get a bracket for a P/S pump. If you have any more opinions on those Volcano contraptions that fit inside the air cleaner and are supposed to get better fuel economy, say so.