Having a strangely difficult time finding the correct bolts to attach my Ford (CW) water pump the the aluminum timing cover on my 408 engine. The shop that put the engine together gave me a bag of the ARP fasteners that were left over from the engine build but several were missing and the lengths were wrong so I just got a new set of ARP fasteners for the SBF with alum cover and water pump. Well, out of the pack of 15 different length bolts, only about 3 could be used. Again, they are all just too short.

There's nothing strange or out of the ordinary going on here.................standard OEM parts that has me puzzled. I bought a lenght of 5/16" threaded rod and screwed it into each mounting home and then marked the length to get an exact measurement for each bolt. I guess I will have to search the bolt bins at the local hardware store to find what I want but you would think a "kit" would be easy to find.

Also bought a steel alt bracket kit from one of the Mustang repo companies for a 351W engine for mounting my alternator. It didn't fit either..............the two holes one the one end didn't line up with any two holes on the water pump and the hole for the alt bolt was not line up properly.

I know that there are several nice billet mount kits available but was tying to keep the engine looking more period correct. Anyone have any recommendations or suggestion?

Many thanks,

Ron