Pulley alignment help
 

Long story short I know diddly about squat, bought myself a 72 C20 custom camper with a 350 and noticed an oil leak so figured I'd just change the front seal.
Fast forward to reassembly and the power steering is squealing like a family of chipmunks being evicted. After inspection, the alignment of the pulleys is off. The power steering pulley sits about 1/8"proud of its counterpart on the harmonic balancer. Additionally it seems to be slightly angled with the outer portion towards the cab. I did scrape some epoxy out of the groove on the balancer and was curious if the previous mechanic had put it there as a stop point for putting it back on? When removing the pulley the set nut on the sliding rail was loose and I believe the through bolt at the bottom of the reservoir was all that was keeping tension on the belt. That being said, it took a good bit of effort to get the assembly to tilt enough to remove the belt.

I guess my question is, do I back out the harmonic balancer? Any tips or experience with getting the ps assembly parallel to everything else? All advice is appreciate. Not overly keen on the "sounds like you have the wrong parts" or "you need a different pulley assembly" since everything was aligned prior to my wrenching project.

**Background about me, my family is into Chevrolets but I never was shown/took in too much growing up. Fast forward to 31 years old and I learned what a water pump was last week when coolant started pouring out a bolt hole on my way to the timing cover. Feel free to chuckle, I sure did. Fairly smart guy, just not much experience but love to learn. Heck, even ended up repainting the timing cover and oil pan while I had them off. But I will admit I am greener than this dark olive '72...

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

Pics of what you’re working on help.
Pullies, ps pump —-

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

Here's what the balancer looked like before I scraped it out and a couple photos of the alignment currently. Hard to capture.

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

I’d leave the balancer alone and check how the pump is set up. Might need a bracket tweak.

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

If it's only the power steering pulley that misaligned, the P/S pump is improperly installed, perhaps a spacer or washer is missing.

The balancer must be installed "bottomed out" against the lower timing chain sprocket.. DO NOT "back it out".. If the other pulleys are misaligned with the balancer pulleys, something else is amiss. If everything aligned properly before you began your task, you made a mistake in the re-installation.

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

What’s the part number on the power steering pump pulley?

Re: Pulley alignment help
 

For 1972 C/K small block short water pump applications, the single groove outer crank stack/add on pulley for driving the p/s pump would be p/n 3751232BB and the matching single groove pulley on the p/s pump would be p/n 3993325DJ. Here are a few pics of a complete OE power steering changeover removed from a 72 C/2wd S/B 350 truck showing both the matching p/s pump mounting brackets and the mentioned 1232BB and 3325DJ pulleys. Mel :chevy:
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Re: Pulley alignment help
 

Appreciate all the information. Tightened up the pulley. Had somehow loosened up doing the whole process.