Updating 1968 Chevrolet C-10 Engine - Restoration Rehab

One good habit I’ve gotten into is to drop in the distributor with the rotor pointed to the number one cylinder.

One thing that may be necessary in an MSD distributor is to change out the advance springs and advance stop bushing to suite your particular engine. From the factory, MSD ships the dizzy with the heaviest springs installed, which yields the slowest rate of advance. They also come with the Blue (21 degrees total) advance stop bushing installed. I opted to swap them out with the lightest springs and the black bushing (18 degrees total) so that the advance comes on quickly but is limited more in total degrees.

Shown here are the AGC brackets, painted in Summit GM Black engine paint. From left are the power steering, alternator, and a/c brackets. Each kit also comes with the necessary hardware and spacers required.

Here’s the power steering bracket in place. Note that it attaches to the front of the block and picks up one mounting location from the motor mount for extra support.

Classic Performance Products (CPP) early ‘70s GM-based power steering pump installed.

To keep the electrical system maintained, I opted to go with an old standby, Powermaster Performance and their 140-amp 12si one-wire alternator. Dig the as-cast casing!

The AGC rear alternator bracket mounts off the first and third exhaust manifold holes using provided hardware and spacers…

…while the front bracket mounts off the top water pump bolt. Note that I’ve got the early heads that are sans bolt holes in the front, part of the dilemma that AGC solved when it came time to sort out the bracketry. Also note the Weiand as-cast, high-flow aluminum water pump.

The alternator swings up and the whole kit and caboodle rotates within the bracket for belt tension adjustment.

Hooking up a one-wire alternator is pretty simple: run an adequately gauged wire from the alternator BAT terminal to the battery. Powermaster recommends a six-gauge cable for this application; I might have to increase my wire’s size.

I also decided to go with a Powermaster Mastertorque gear reduction starter to rid Chevy’s notorious hard-starting when hot problem.

One cool thing about this starter is that it can be clocked to aid installation of cables, etc.