318 LA Mounting Boss and Mounting Brackets

Engine, transmission, rear-end, driveline, fuel system etc..
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Silas
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Posts: 36
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 6:42 am
City: Va Beach
State: VA

318 LA Mounting Boss and Mounting Brackets

Post by Silas »

Hello All,

The original 318 out of my 68 D100 was not rebuildable so a 1976 318 was used. On the passenger side of the 76 block there is only one bolt hole in the rear boss for the engine mount bracket. My 68 318 had two bolt holes in the rear boss for the two bolt holes in the engine bracket. Also, it seems the forward boss on the 76 block is thicker than the forward boss on the 68 so my original engine brackets are now too narrow to bolt to the 76 block. After lots of searching on this forum this narrowness problem seems similar to that faced by those swapping in a 360 and I see some advocate taking up the gap with washers. I can attach my current engine bracket to the engine if I use washers as spacers but my bracket will pivot since the engine's rear boss has only one bolt hole. I see some have used part of an extra 318 bracket to weld additional width onto an existing bracket but is there another way? Since my current mounting bracket has the side with two holes toward the rear (where the engine boss has only one bolt hole) and the side with one hole toward the front where the engine boss has two holes, I need to solve the dilemma of getting a third bolt attached somehow so the bracket doesn't pivot. Thanks in advance for any advice/assistance.
Carl
68 D-100 Custom
318 Auto Utiline

Silas
Sweptline.ORG Member
Sweptline.ORG Member
Posts: 36
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 6:42 am
City: Va Beach
State: VA

Re: 318 LA Mounting Boss and Mounting Brackets

Post by Silas »

OK, I believe I was able to answer my own question. What was really throwing me off was the single bolt hole on the engine's rear boss for the passenger side bracket. I went to the local junkyard and found a 87 B350 van with a 360 in it. I pulled the passenger side engine bracket and noticed that engine also had only one bolt hole in the rear boss on the pass side. However, the engine bracket had four holes instead of three so that gave me a 2d bolt hole for the forward part of the pass side bracket and that will keep my bracket from pivoting. And, bonus, just as I hoped after researching more on this site, the 360 bracket is wider so no washers as spacers will be required. The 360 bracket had only a single hole for the rubber mount/isolator so I elongated it into a slot which mirrored what my original 68 318 bracket had.
68 D-100 Custom
318 Auto Utiline

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