I have the "engine forward" brackets on my car. They came with the engine I got from Jeff Reeves for the crankshaft -- a 74 Hornet 258. My guess is the engine forward brackets appeared with the 1/4" higher deck height engines (71+). Could be the TF trans though (72+). Isn't your car a 1970? There are fewer 70s than other years, might be why no one else has noticed the difference.
I tend to packrat brackets (the key to parts-swap success!) so I have no idea where they came from. I bet you're right, they make the long/tall motor fit the (now early) chassis.
I can picture AMC factory mocking up the drivetrain and saying "oh crap" and conjuring up this fix.
With a stock valve cover, the forward brackets would make the tall head fit; but the cast-aluminum cover still needed notching. It looks fine (if odd) since I repainted the notched part wrinkle black. Without the notch, there would be a few tenths clearance to the wiper box.
On June 6, 2005 Tom Jennings wrote:
OK, I finally took photos of the two kinds of inline engine brackets I know of.
Unfortunately the engine-forward brackets are installed, and therefore hard to measure.
I photo'd the drivers-side only.
It's easier to visualize the difference if you follow the relative position of the center/top of the three holes where it bolts to the block, vs. the center line of the two insulator bolt holes.
I held a little square up to the top/center hole in both photos.
*** The engine-centered bracket, the top/center hole is in the middle of the two insulator holes.
*** The engine-forward brackets, the top/center hole is much closer to the front insulator bolt hole.
http://www.wps.com/AMC/Inline-engine-brackets/engine-centered-bracket-left.jpg http://www.wps.com/AMC/Inline-engine-brackets/push-engine-forward-bracket-left.jpg
The on-car photo is the 63 rambler; it's yellow so it photo'd well. Funny, as I needed the "other" brackets for this install, but didn't have them (or know about them) at the time.
And when I recently moved the 258 in the 70 Hornet a few days ago, I could have installed these brackets, but it was a lot easier to simply redrill the pads on-car.
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