350 to inline 250 Swap

[2bits]

To start off with I wouldn't recommend any A/C bracket setup that utilizes idler pulleys, it's just a waste to me and it's only real purpose is to get the belt around the water pump. It is better to just get the third pulley that slips over the OEM WP pulley and use it. The kit I was supplied used one of the idlers to create the belt tension, not rotating the compressor. I am soo glad I didn't toss that original A/C bracket that happened to be with the engine when I bought it as it cleaned up nicely and worked perfectly with the tension adjuster right where it should be, on the bracket! Unlike the craziness with the power steering pumps on these engines, this setup is really simple as there is only one bracket you need aside from the two pulleys that go on top of your existing pulleys.

The bracket I have is like the factory one and has a vertical bar that goes down and bolts near the timing cover. This is fine except it is exactly in the way of the lower radiator hose, the factory hose is fine and routes around this, but unfortunately, I have a radiator for a 350 and the opening for the hose is bigger and the 6 cyl hose won't fit, so now I need to get a whole new 6 cyl radiator just so I can get the factory hose for A/C to fit (a flex hose didn't work very well). hmm... now I am scratching my head... the compressor bracket from Old Air is $85 and the new radiator is $250, I can swap the bracket a third time to the Old air version and get rid of that vertical bar altogether, and I can use my old straight radiator hose again! hmm.. thanks guys, responding to this post led me to my solution!

If I was going to do this from scratch again, I would get the complete A/C system from OldAirProducts.com end of story. They have great prices and all the right brackets and pulleys you need. The 6-Cyl compressor bracket is the best design I have seen yet. I attached a pic of their bracket, this is the one to get!