I just finished mounting a GM Type II power steering box WITH the attached resivor, on the drivers side. Pump from TurnOne. I had to mount an idler pulley for the lower half of the alt. belt to clear the resivor. This is on a small block with a short water pump. The mount for the pump bracket is a Canton bracket # 75-284 block mount. The idler pulley is a Mopar #1-04854092 1999 4 liter inline 6cylinder. Comes with attached (captured)spacer. I mounted it on an .125 plate that is bolted to the two water pump bolts. Used a lock nut on the pulley bolt. I plan on running a hydoboost brake system in the future, and maybe air. The pump runs on the 3rd groove,the one farthest from the engine. The second groove now has a (free belt). Deep grove pulleys are aluminum, from Canton Racing. They also slow the water pump and steering pump down by about 40%, not the alt.
The alt. mount is a GM 14015510 early 90's Corvette aluminun and pulley a deep goove HP. Went with this mount because future plan on headers. The mount bolts to the front of the head.
I had the stock upper brace on the alt. but was not sure if the belt would stay on the pully at high rpm so I went with a Billet Specialties belt tensioner. No problem at 5,000 rpm.
My Grand Cherokee steering box (used) didn't have any road feel. I came to the conclusion that it need to be rebuilt. But instead I purchased one from AGR and ordered one with a 210# spool valve where the Grand Cherokee is suspose to have had a 190# valve. Email for more info if needed.

Looks like an interesting solution to use the idler pulley with V-belt. Now that you have been running this for awhile... how has it worked out?

No major problems. I have learned that it's not necessary to have the belt real tight. It wont walk on the idler pulley. And will probley last longer. I am running a early 70's 350 with 8" balancer. The timing pointer or plate is very hard to see with the timming light pointing down. I have a adjustable light (snapon) so I shine the light from below, pointing it from under the resivor. Timming tab is about the 3 o'clock position. I am doing this with my arm in the engine compartment. Not from below the front bumper.
The steering pump has a 6 in. pulley. But I am running the Canton under drive (78%) water and crank pulleys. At very low rpm, backing out of the driveway or parking, the steering can get a little rough, even with the stock 15' steering wheel. Steering box has .210 torsion bar. At about 1,000rpm steering is fine.

Did the mount you used include the idler roller or did you add this on later? I like the way your setup looks!! I am also going to install an AGR box with a type II pump but went with a remote reservoir to avoid the belt routing issue. I'm still not sure if I like my solution. Yours is nice.

Did you use your stock 65 pitman arm? I was told you have to use a 68-72 arm but have not gotten a straight answer.

I think I may steal your idea. Can you describe your idler pulley mounting a bit more? In particular location relative to the water pump bolts?

I finally got the new seals and steering stop reconfiguration done on my '92 Camaro "XH" steering box with the .210" T-bar. I could just get the hose adapters and bolt it in there... but that would be too simple.

So, since I have been planning on making more room for a bigger electric fan, it must be time to convert from LWP to SWP configuration ;-)

I am also converting over to metric O-ring lines and a remote reservoir Saginaw N pump. This is much like the original Saginaw P pump but without the front tank sealing flange. So pump output, pressure relief valves, pulleys, and pressure lines are completely compatible. The mounting is *almost* bolt-in compatible. There are only 2 front/rear mounting points on this particular version (some N pumps have 3) rather than the 4 on the P pump. And the front facing surface is about .25" higher on the N pump, so the mount needs to be wider. I could run it and the alternator on one belt, but that would require mounting the pump with the back face about 7/8" behind the block face. Not the simplest mount to fabricate :-(

But if I use your approach and run the PS pump in the front groove as GM did, then I have 5/8" between block face and pump back. That is a much easier mounting problem :thumbsup: Plus I am running the Alan Grove alternator bracket. So I already have a 1/4" plate running between the lower alternator mounting point and the upper water pump bolt. Sounds like it may be a good place to mount an idler pulley :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

The distance between the water pump bolts and C/L of idler pulley is about 1.6 inches. Pulley mount on flat steel plate about 1/16 thick.
Yes use the steering arm for your year car. Power is different than non power (pitman) steering arm.
Correction from orginal post, Canton pulleys used are slowing water pump and power steering down to 78% of stock pulley rpm.

Looking closer...

Are you running the crank/wp pulleys in the Canton "road race" setup? And it appears you are running one belt on just crank and water pump? And I had guessed the alternator belt runs around both crank and WP. But it would seem possible to just run a belt from WP to alternator and get much the same benefit as the idler pulley.

That is a rather big slowdown on the accessories. I would guesstimate the stock crank pulley at about 6.5" versus your 5.5". Looks like you are stock on the alternator pulley, so stock alternator is about 2.4x crank and you are about 2x which is probably not too bad (that is if I have guessed right on your belt setup). Stock water pump ratio is about 1.25x crank and you are 0.8x which seems like a awful big drop. Hope you have a really good water pump and radiator on there to compensate.

And on the PS side... stock ratios vary but tended towards 1x. Yours looks around 0.45x which would explain the slow speed stiffness you sometimes get. May want to think about this a bit with the hydroboost plans too. If the steering is lacking in pressure/flow, then brake boost might become a low engine speed issue as well.

You can help the power steering feel with these, they have them for both the Aluminum and Steel housings.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/4805,177_KRC-Aluminum-Pump-Flow-Control-Valves.html?itemNo=power%20steering%20flow

I did wind up adopting your idea about using the idler pulley.

So now I have a BB with SWP in a '68 El Camino with the alternator on the DS and future A/C on the PS. I am running a generic 3-groove crank pulley with alternator/wp on groove 1, groove 2 open for A/C, and PS on groove 3. For brackets I am running Alan Grove Components on both Alt and PS. Both were actually adapted from the LWP versions as I previously ran a LWP. The spacers were cut down on the alt bracket to convert it over for SWP. I also put the spacer on the lower alternator bolt rather than 2 spacers on the head as Alan Grove has on the SWP version of this bracket. And I have the alt moved forward an extra 1/4" to line up, but I think that may be my crank pulley because I had to add 3/16" of spacers behind the water pump pulley too. The last thing I modified on this bracket was to countersink a flat head allen screw for the bottom head mounting. This allow the PS pump to clear in front of it.

For the PS I have a one-off setup using the remote reservoir Saginaw N pump. This is almost identical to the normal Saginaw P pump except without any reservoir nor front flange. I grabbed this out of a '83 Cadillac Deville along with the remote reservoir tank (which I mounted on the fender in place of the washer tank for now). Turns out the typically used mounts are close to 1/2" deeper on this pump than the normal Saginaw P pump. So I needed an extra 1/2" on the bracket spacers. Which was a convenient place to mount my idler pulley using some 1/4"x2" aluminum strip I had laying around. The idler mounts to the rear 1/4" and hits the alternator belt just about perfectly.

I am running a March PS pulley, I think it is a #511, to move the PS pulley groove as far out as possible. This pulley shifted it out about 1/4" compared to the regular single groove PS pulley I had on there before.

The hardest thing to figure out on the whole setup was how to do the tensioner for the PS pump. Not enough room in the back to mount anything to the top hole. So I made up a plate for the front that doubles as a shim for mount clearance. It has a slot and I put a bolt in the front lower mount plate to clamp the plate to hold tension. Basically the same principle as used on the Alan Grove alternator bracket.

And then the final piece... I finally got my Camaro steering box with reconfigured steering stops and 0.210" T bar installed. Very cool. I am a very happy camper. No more over-boosted feeling steering. :thumbsup:

I am going to have to redo my hose setup when I have more time... finding just the right hose is problemattic as there really is not much room to play with when the alternator is right over the top of the PS pump. Then there is the metric O-ring factor, all my hose ends are now O-ringed.

Hey Roy, now that you have had some time on your idler pulley belt setup I have a question for you: how is the belt holding up to the reverse bend over the idler pulley?

I ask because mine is cracking and losing chunks from the inside of the belt. I think I am going to have to come up with another plan. :-P

Belts doing just fine. I removed the (dead belt) and I moved powersteering belt to the #2 slot in the crank and waterpump. Needed a longer belt. Also had to mount idlerpully father back. Just replaced aluminum spacers.
Wrecked the Elky July 26. Hagerty Ins. totaled, frame bent. I purchased it back for the interior and running gear.
I have already purchased another 65. It will be a frame off. Had the frame galvanized. Is back under the NEW car now.Had to replace the floors like the last one. A Calif. built car.

Bummer about the wreck... damage looked rather localized to that front corner. Time for a custom front subframe? :D

How many miles did you put on the idler pulley setup and alternator belt?

About 6,000 miles on the newer poweresteering setup before accident. Yes very tight with the powersteering hoses. I was also running hydoboost power brakes. Ran those hoses between the iner and outer fenders.