Trans Am Information > Aftermarket Questions

a review of new "custom" power steering/ alt bracket

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Andy78TA:
Hello all,
   I wanted to start a thread about this to let people know in case anyone was thinking about buying this item. The bracket is a custom power steering and alternator bracket made by CVF racing. I bought the item on ebay here
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110685176641&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT

I thought this would be something a little different to put on my car and would add a little something for not too much work. I was wrong.

When I got the item which was shipped to me very quickly, I thought it looked great. The directions seemed pretty clear and the parts were pretty easy to figure out. Upon starting of installation things went wrong. First, when I tried to put the main bracket on, the center bolt that goes to the water pump that they supplied me cracked. Now I have a piece of bolt stuck in the block that I can't do anything about until I go to a machine shop and have it drilled out, still I thought ok, sometimes you get a faulty bolt. I continued.

second problem, upon trying to install the top adjusting rod for the alternator, the bolt they supplied was not long enough, it was the size it said it was suppose to be on the instructions but it was just not long enough. Because of this I needed to take a trip to Home Depot to get a new longer bolt.

third problem, upon actually getting things lined up, the way the bracket is, the power steering reservoir actually hits the top of the A arm at the back. At this point I had enough and emailed the company immediately explaining my frustrations and disappointment. I also noted to them that nowhere did it say in the auction that you needed to buy new belts which I did not think of when i bought the item.

Now let me say this, although the product in question really was not what I expected one of the company reps emailed me back immediately and apologized. They immediately refunded all of my money including shipping and told me to keep the bracket for the aggravation that it caused me. I thought this was a very stand up thing to do and because of this decided to give it a shot once more.

I have successfully put the bracket, alternator, and power steering on and just need to go out and buy the new belts. I however needed to take the power steering pump out, take off the pulley, re-bend the high pressure power steering line, and grind a little bit off of the power steering reservoir and the A arm. I also needed to really change the order of their directions. This ended up taking 3 days for a total of probably 15+ hours to accomplish, not really what I would call a bolt in installation.

I just wanted to write this in case anyone else was interested in this product. It WILL fit, but is not bolt it, in requires some real work and thinking and measuring to get things right, however the company seems dependable and will stand by their products. I will include some pictures tomorrow for anyone interested.

-Andrew

Andy78TA:
after 7 days of the bird being down, it is actually drivable again. I am going to take pictures later today to show what all the aggravation was about

Andy78TA:
some pictures of before and after

Before with stock brackets:







the new bracket kit



after with the new brackets

SoonerTA:
Wow, that sucks.  I have looked at this kit on ebay for quite some time.  Thanks for the review.  But now that it is on, it really looks good.  Thanks for posting!

Andy78TA:
it does look nice, i'll admit that. And at a local get together last week a few people came up to me and said they didn't know there was anything like that for pontiacs. If someone was interested in it I would be more than happy to give some pointers to anyone to hopefully allow installation to not be nearly as much of a hastle as mine was :) It does seem like a good quality piece.

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