buick 231 power steering manifold issue

[cj68man]

I have finally found what i thought was the correct two piece bracket to mount the power seerting pully/pump onto the buick 231 block. My issue is there is not enough clearnece between the top of the manifold and the bottom of the pully/pump. where the mainfold connects to the rest of the exhuast is "bulges" (naturally because os the bolts that conect the two pipes). This is excatly where the adjustment screw from the pump/pully is sopposet to be which makes for disaster becuse it hits into the "bulge". What do I do to fix this has any one else ever encounter this problem befroe? thanks for any help

[Caver Dave]

Is your drivers side exhaust manifold a "forward dump" (exhaust connects from the front) like on the earlier 225s?

[cj68man]

yes the drivers side dumps foward towards the front of my jeep this is the conection point that interfers with the pump/pully. I gues i will be needing to get the proper manifold. Is a stock 231 the correct one, and if so is there a specific year that only works or do they all dump backwards? thanks for your help, josh

[Caver Dave]

Josh, correct me if I'm wrong, but you must have kept the 225 manifolds when you swapped in the 231? Pretty common ailment amongst the early CJ & Jeepster crowd converting to power steering...

IIRC, all the 231 drivers side manifolds are all rear dump, so it'll require some exhaust "re-plumbing" on that side.

[cj68man]

I found one fellow who says he has the high and low set up brackets. It sounds liek i had the low set up, tus interfering with my 225 pipe. Instead of buying a new manifold he is confinced the high bracket set up will clear it, have you ever herd of this before. It is the cheapest and easiest way becuse i do not need to re do the exhaust just put a new bracket in, thanks again

[Caver Dave]

Originally Posted by cj68man

Instead of buying a new manifold he is confinced the high bracket set up will clear it, have you ever herd of this before.

Josh, my knowledge comes from Jeepsters (same 225 Dauntless your CJ had?) and every instance of someone converting to power steering has included swapping the driver side manifold to rear dump to make room for the pump... period. IIRC, there are mounts that place the pump at different heights, but none may be used with the forward dump exhaust manifold.

If you haven't visited earlycj5.com, do a search there "power steering conversion". They've already hashed out 99.99% of anything V6 related years ago and IMO, the best 225/231 Jeep resource on the web... If you don't find it there, ASK!

I also agree with JeepDawg about the headers... expense, 90% chance of leaks, and do ZILCH performance wise, unless your drag racing/spinning redline RPMs the majority of the time. The castiron manifolds have been proven repeatedly to offer the best lowend (LOW RPM) performance for offroad. Plus, they don't have the sealing issues that plaque headers...

[cj68man]

what do you mean by cracks in it? that sounds terible. Where do the cracks form? thanks for the heads up

[Caver Dave]

Originally Posted by cj68man

what do you mean by cracks in it? that sounds terible. Where do the cracks form? thanks for the heads up

What are you referring to bro?