RomanBluejay

Always tremendous help to read from the past experiences of others. That said, sharing a few more experiences and comments that may help those trying to remove and REINSTALL their alternator. FIRST - be sure to have your battery checked prior to starting. A lot can be determined by having a battery place test your charging system prior to you banging your knuckles with the alternator. The battery would be the easiest solution if you are lucky enough to find that you have a bad cell etc. My vehicle was charging just fine at 14v for the initial stages of a drive. Once the car warmed up it starting running a bit rough and bouncing above and below 12v and kicked on the battery light and gave the battery/generator warning. I determined from other posts that this sounded like a voltage regulator issue and proceeded. SECOND, in relation to the pesky bushing on the lower right/ back side of the alternator. In my case it took considerable “direct” persuasion to get it to retract even a little bit even after being marinated in Kroil overnight. Many people on here have been blessed with a bushing sent from heaven. Mine apparently just got off a corroded boat from the River Styx. Tamping on the bolt that goes through the pulley after unscrewing it a few turns (as has been mentioned) had zero effect. I eventually used a 3 foot long 3/8ths inch steel rod that fit down the bolt channel to allow me to reach the bushing while being able to hammer the opposite end while outside the engine bay. A friend of mine made sure that the rod stayed positioned on the face of the bushing and out of the opening so as not to bungle the threads. Despite considerable effort we were only able to get that infernal bushing to move just enough to slip the alternator off its mooring and out of the car. For reinstall, no one has given any advice that I could find other than “reverse the steps”, so here goes. First, after getting your alternator out (or before installing your new one) be sure that the aforementioned bushing is retracted completely flush or even below flush into its den of iniquity. How you do this is up to you but in my case involved direct hammering while proclaiming “Now who’s the boss!” Once the bushing is out of the way the challenge to installation is you have no leverage to get the back side of the alternator up and lined up for the bolt that goes through the pulley. To solve for this I used a small piece of rebar and put it under the alternator. This allowed me to lever the back of the alternator into place (at the same time as the front right) which then gave enough clearance for the lower left bolt to have the alignment necessary to move far enough right and go into place. Once the lower left bolt was loosely screwed in, that more or less held the alternator in a position that was at least situated on the front and back side of where the right side bolt needed to go and I just needed to use the rebar to make fine-tuned adjustments for the right side bolt to line up. One additional comment I never saw anywhere- when you remove the air box there are a couple plastic “posts” that extend down off the box itself that provide additional stability beyond the bolt you remove just inside the engine bay and the clamps holding the hoses. Those posts are nearest you in the engine bay and rest in little rubber bushings. In my case, one of the bushings stuck to the box when it came out and one did not. The wayward bushing took a Plinko joy ride into the engine bay and had to be hunted down. Consider yourself notified. Overall, this project would have required much less time and effort had the bushing not been such a bugger. Having an extra set of hands is helpful as long as whoever is helping you is not offended by profanity when the bushing laughs in your face and refuses to move. Good luck all!