I just replaced my alt and noticed my power steering pump is not sitting so the pulley lines up with the water pump pulley. After looking at the parts manual I can see mine is not mounted as the picture shows. Can anyone tell me if there are three spacers between the mounting plate and the pump or just two like the picture shows? Are the spacers the same thickness? Does the Alternator pivot brace mount in front of the pump mount plate like in the picture or behind like mine is? When I try to mount it as in the picture it is out of alignment even worse than before.
Thanks for any help.
Al.

I feel for you on this one. I went through this myself and ended up realizing I had wrong pulleys, wrong water pump and wrong timing chain cover. By the time I had it all figured out and rounded up ALL of the CORRECT parts, my car was totaled. I never got the chance to install all the right stuff to make everything line up the way it should.

I think what has happened to a lot of these cars is over the years people change from 8-bolt to 11-bolt timing chain covers/water pumps, they change pulleys etc. and things just get totally whacked. You may want to research the part numbers on your pulleys against what you should have and go from there. I used Vikki's site to find all the correct part numbers etc. and then began to round up the correct parts...

Having the car totalled has to hurt, I hope the occupants fared better.

I took the whole mess apart, only two of the three bolts attaching the pump were present and those went through a 3/4' and a 3/8' spacer. I set aside the 3/4, made another 3/8 spacer and re-attached everything as per the diagram in the manual, It fits a lot better. Now I just have to know whether the stud that is broken off the back of the pump housing, and is supposed to go through the bracket, is welded to the back of the reservoir or if it goes through the reservoir to the pump itself.

Who is Vikki and what is the site?
Thanks.
Al.

Aside from having 6 ruptured discs in my back and a torn spinal cord cavity (not exactly sure if that is the correct medical term), being hit by an undocumented visitor (aka: ilegal alien) who was texting at the time of impact as per her phone records all is wonderful. The amazing thing is, she had auto ins.! Good ole Geico insures ilegals and she also had a driver's license. Go figure. And best of all, she had an Osama bumper sticker on her 2000 Acura! LOL

Vikki, is yellowbird from this site, she too has a FGF site with tons of excellent info...

Ouch. I can sympathize with the back, I have a smashed vertebrae with the two above and below fused together to make a solid length of five, not from an auto accident, from a parachute malfunction. Makes it kind of hard to do work under the hood or dash but I'm in fine shape compared to some others.

I tried to get Yellowbird's site from the profile, but get an "oops" message. What is the name of the site please?

Thank you

I had to mess around with mine to get it all to line up nicely. If you have an 11 bolt timing cover as I ended up with you need the right water pump to get your accesories to line up. I was going crazy till I found this out.

Here ya go!

http://thefirstgensite.com/

That's a good site. thanks.

So the stud on the back of the pump below the filler tube. Is it welded on or does it thread into the pump. I'd hate to damage anything trying to turn it out if it's welded on. Mines broken off at about the first thread and would be easy to replace if it's threaded in but I will have to take the pump off and have another stud welded on if not.

It screws in, and right into the reservoir. Make sure you use some teflon tape or other thread sealer when replacing it, or you'll be cleaning up p/s fluid.

Thanks I'll give it a shot.

Yes, it threads in. It's a nut with a short threaded stud that goes through the housing and into the pump casting. The long end goes through the pwr st bracket. I just had the neck of mine break off and was forced to take the whole thing apart to fix it.

Did you buy a new one at the parts store or did you have to get one at a Pontiac specialty store? Is the cupped washer that fits over the hex part of the stud available as well?

I actually removed the stud and used a bolt from the backside of the bracket as this allowed the pump to draw up closer to the bracket therefore allowing it to sit straighter and align better with the other pulleys. Hope that makes sense, sound confusing I know, but it worked...

Nah, this is still a good pump. I didn't have any luck soldering the neck back on so I just sealed the seam up and tacked it back on with my mig.
Joe's fix for the alignment sounds like a good idea. I don't use the cupped washer in between the pump and bracket for just that same reason.

Thanks for the tip. It took and impact wrench but I got the stud out. I was worried about the seal so I used some high temp sealant and stuck a thin washer over the stud hole and put a bolt in through the bracket in-place of the stud. It aligns very straight now and the pump is secure on the bracket.

Cool. I'm going to give that a try next time I have to pull it off.

That was the only way I could get the pulleys to line perfectly because I was using the old school cloth wrapped belts (OEM/original) type and with the pulleys not being perfectly aligned, the power steering belt would always get tossed at high RPM's. Then, it would often cause the other belt to toss as it would get caught up in the pulleys etc. I learned that lesson the first pair of cloth wrapped belts I bought for $35 each and they both got tossed and chewed up the first time I hammered the engine!

That was $70 down the drain within seconds! That's when I realized I needed to align the pulleys perfectly before buying another pair of the OEM type belts. However, if you run over the counter belts like a top cog type, they don't care if the pulleys are aligned or not. Hell, they can be off by a 1/2" and they still work. But for me, being the "stock look" kinda guy I am, I just had to use the cloth wrapped belts.

My Pontiac friends always used to bust on me, they would say I was the only guy putting 405hp to the rear wheels and still had to run cloth wrapped belts! LOL For me, it was all about a stock look. Just like it will be when the stroked 461 goes in the LeMans someday! To look at it, everyone will think I am still running the numbers matching 326!

Do those belts fit down in the groove or do they ride up near the top? If the belt is a little wider than it should be it may get thrown on rapid acceleration or deceleration. The driven belt cant keep up with the driving belt and the belt rides over the rim. If the belt sits way down in the groove it helps to eliminate the problem. One would still want the alignment as accurate as possible.

Sorry it should have read 'driven pulley' and 'driving pulley'
not belt.