help on p/s and alt. brackets on #62 heads

[OrbitGTO]

hey guys, I just finished rebuilding my 400 for the goat, and swapped to #62 heads. My problem is that my current brackets don't work with these heads (too stupid to check in advance, I guess...) I HAD 6X-8 heads before; somebody swapped them out from God knows what originally. Would a 68-69 bracket setup work on these heads? What brackets/pulleys would I need to replace to make everything line up correctly (I've got AC to worry about, too)? Any help is appreciated, and if you've got the pulleys and brackets I'll need, let me know.

[OrbitGTO]

hey guys, I just finished rebuilding my 400 for the goat, and swapped to #62 heads. My problem is that my current brackets don't work with these heads (too stupid to check in advance, I guess...) I HAD 6X-8 heads before; somebody swapped them out from God knows what originally. Would a 68-69 bracket setup work on these heads? What brackets/pulleys would I need to replace to make everything line up correctly (I've got AC to worry about, too)? Any help is appreciated, and if you've got the pulleys and brackets I'll need, let me know.

[GP-K]

Orbit,

It sounds like somewhere along the line you have gotten a later engine and all of it's accessory mounts swapped into your Goat.

As you have discovered, the 6x heads have more accessory bolt holes on them than the 62's or similar earlier heads have. What you will need are all of the brackets and pullies from a '68, '69 or maybe even a '70 in order for everything to match up properly. You will find the A/C brackets to be very different, with a large aluminum bracket as part of the '60's setup, and aluminum spacer pieces too. It's a real pain in the behind to mess with this, and I wish Pontiac had stuck with the early brackets, although the later ones are certainly more simple to assemble.

I had to mess with this many years ago, when I installed an early set of cylinder heads on a '75 400 GP my parents owned. (I wanted it to be as quick and efficient as my '69 428 HO, and thought that high compression heads alone would do it) If you need any factory diagrams of the early bracketry from the shop manual, I can scan them, and e-mail them to you. Just let me know. OH, by the way, what year is your GTO?

Good luck,

K.

[Guy Mazza]

Erik, on my 69 GTO race car, I run 68 #16 heads (same as #62'2) I then run 1972 alt & p/s bkts (w/o p/s pump). E-Mail if you need more specifics. Good Luck! Guy - 0.P.R.A.

[Triggerman]

Orbit, when I installed "16" heads on my '78 T/A (long ago) I found that there was only one bolt that did not have a tapped hole to go into. It was the long bolt thru the power steering pump bracket. However, the head has a slight recess there (in lieu of a boss to drill and tap). I used an open end wrench to hold a nut in position and just threaded the bolt into the nut and tightened it. The nut just fits behind the bracket at the recess. If you feel the need to change to another bracket setup, it may take a bit of effort to get all the pulleys back into correct alignment as they are now. Try this first and see if it works for you. TM

[Will]

For pictures and some further info about what Triggerman has described, see this link:
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Boulevard/6816/garage/formula/13heads2.html

[Guy Mazza]

Will, Very Cool! Im sure the site will help lots of Pontiyakers with a very common dilemma....3 thumbs up!!!!
Later, Guy - O.P.R.A.

[Triggerman]

Wow, the written word is never quite as clear as just seeing it. Good pics. TM

[OrbitGTO]

I managed to round up most all the brackets I thought I needed this afternoon at one of the local junk yards, but now my problem is that my pulleys don't seem to line up. I was still using the pulleys that were on BEFORE the head swap; will I need to put '69 pulleys on to match the brackets I selected? Thanks for your replies.

P.S.- My car is actually a 72 LeMans conv. with every single option as a GTO would have (because the GTO option was unavailable on a convertable in 72)