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Alternator Help!

astral said:
yes.. it could work.. he would just need a bolt the same size as the origanal stud or whatever helicoil kit he got. the only diff between a bolt and a stud with a nut is one is a one piece and the other is two pieces... he would just have to thread the power wire onto the bolt before screwing it in. remember... helicoil procedure.. DRILL OUT WHAT'S STILL THERE! the stud would be gone and a bolt COULD take it's place...
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No, it can not work. You have to pull the alternator and open it to remove the broken stud. If you do not there will be a piece that falls into the alternator and will cause it to fail. It is not a simple drill & helicoil in this case. You need to open one of these units before saying it can be done that way.


For instance, if you drill out the post from the alternator shown below, what is left? The nut that was holding the post on the inside of the alt would now be floating around loose in the case of the alternator causing catastrophic failure and you would have done all that work for nothing....
P7200057.jpg
 
Update:

Put her up on jack stands and started work. Power wire was easy enough to get off. Now, onto the alternator. The very bottom bolt was the worst. It was basically rusted in place. Took me over an hour with WD-40 to get that thing out. Had to make a trip to auto zone to pick up the universal swivel to reach the top bolt. By golly gee! That thing works like a charm! Took almost no time to get it out! Haha, okay, maybe, still, like 15 minutes. Anyways, the alt and power wire are out. The stud where they connect is done-skies. Another power wire and alternator are on the way and I should begin reinstallation next week. All in all, took me about 4 hours, including breaks, cursing, working, more cursing, taking the bolts off, pulling the tie rod out, tantrum, water, and pulling the alternator out. hahaha But for my first time doing an alternator, I'm pretty proud of myself! :laugh: Pictures will be up tomorrow to show the devastation! hahahaha



And then another 2 hours or so to put it back on! YAY!!! LOL
 
Congratulations on getting involved and starting to make the repairs.

Don't forget to charge the battery (and it would not hurt to have it tested). The battery will last much longer if you properly charge it instead of getting the engine started from a jump start and depending on the alternator to bring the battery back up to charge.
 
blu_fuz said:
No, it can not work. You have to pull the alternator and open it to remove the broken stud. If you do not there will be a piece that falls into the alternator and will cause it to fail. It is not a simple drill & helicoil in this case. You need to open one of these units before saying it can be done that way.


For instance, if you drill out the post from the alternator shown below, what is left? The nut that was holding the post on the inside of the alt would now be floating around loose in the case of the alternator causing catastrophic failure and you would have done all that work for nothing....
Click to expand...

ok... your totally right on this Blu Fuz and icysvt... i have never opened one up before and from what i see you are absolutely right... my apologies for the mistaken advice... in my defense; i'm used to when something is referred to as a "stud" that there is a hole it is torquesd into and there is no fastener on what i guess you could call the back/inside side of it... (i'm used to studs like what you can get from American Fasteners to replace Head bolts that are just long male pieces that thread into a female hole and are torqued in and the only fastener is on the very outside end after what you are trying to hold onto the original piece using the stud setup....) and having never cracked one of these open myself i was going on what i thought of as the idea of a "stud" since that's what everyone kept referring to it... and i figured that there probably wasn't enough room to acutally do it in the vehicle so figured it a very low probablility... but you were ccomletely correct... this would have made a royal mess of things..... but i do appreciate the new knowledge and learning something i didn't know... and honestly it may sound corny... but i love being proven wrong because it teaches me something i didn't know before!!! Thanks...

Big Jim said:
Congratulations on getting involved and starting to make the repairs.

Don't forget to charge the battery (and it would not hurt to have it tested). The battery will last much longer if you properly charge it instead of getting the engine started from a jump start and depending on the alternator to bring the battery back up to charge.
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this is so very true and i can't stress enough how right he is about it...... fast charging gets it charged now and gets you on the road now but it shortens the overall life expectancy of the battery!!

Rexx- i have been unable to find a better priced unit around my area that is in good condition... so i'm glad that you've decided to just tear into it yourself and save the money you would've spent on labor, as yhou can now spend that on a better replacement part...

As for my helicoil suggestion.... I'm sorry i made a bad suggustion, i doubted it wouldend up happening but i guess i should have read a little more before i sggested that idea... i happy to hear that you have the old one out and are pretty much ready to put a new one in... goold luck with it!!! and remember, to save some headache later on... if you're gettin a reman'ed one... have it tested before you install it JUST IN CASE.... having that done is free but the peace of mind it'll bring is absolutely PRICELESS!!!

if you have a real battery charger, the day you are going to put the alt in, a little while before (depending on how goot your charger is), just hook up the charger to the batt on Slow Charge (usually something like 1.5 V over a couple hours)) and that will charge the battery the best way possible and make it last a lot longer...
 
astral said:
you were ccomletely correct... this would have made a royal mess of things..... but i do appreciate the new knowledge and learning something i didn't know... and honestly it may sound corny... but i love being proven wrong because it teaches me something i didn't know before!!!
Click to expand...


I understand where the confusion was, I'm glad even I could teach someone something. Stick around, there is plenty to learn.

Get the new alt tested and slowly charge that battery. Nice job getting the alternator out ;).
 
Thanks everybody! It took about as long as I had expected since it was my first time. Those tight spaces, sheesh!! I remember a thread I posted about the most PITA mod ever and a lot of people said the alternator. Ha, now I understand why!

Anyways, I ordered one online yesterday. It's a Bosch reman and I'm kinda iffy on it since everyone's experience with alternators failing and all that. Also, my battery has been charging on a trickle charge, or so my dad says. He says it's for smaller batteries but has the option to charge car batteries as well. So I put it on there to charge for quite a bit. It's done now and I'm not going to use it untill the alternator is tested and put in.

Question, will I be able to go to like, Autozone or of the sort, and have the test the alternator for free since I ordered online? Or how does that work?
 
Fwiw NewTech makes a High Quality reman alternator. EVERYTHING gets replaced except the case. They have a less than 2% failure rate (napa alts have 12% for example). Summit racing carries NewTech products. They are rebuilt in the US, Chicago IIRC.

I special ordered one of their new alternators rather than the reman, and couldn't be happier. When I looked online summit only had the remans. The NAPA my GF works at started carrying these alts after all the NAPA ones started failing. I paid $157 for my new one with the employee discount, list was like $289.....not sure how much one of their remans run.

Good luck!
 
Here are the pics of the damage.


You can see that there is no longer a stud. It's all charred as if it blew up
IMG_2680.jpg


Here's the power wire. The connector end melted and broke off.
IMG_2681.jpg


IMG_2682.jpg






And here's a quick shot I did in front of the house a few days before I decided to tackle the work myself
Edit: In the next post
 
You gotta clean up that back cover. The post (and cable attaching to it) coming up through there must absolutely not touch the aluminum of the back cover. That would be a major short. But I see you now already know that. You probably need to break the unit down to see what you gotta do with the stud into the diode pak, may need new diodes. The short may have taken them out..................
 
Okay, the alternator just came in the mail. I guess I'm off to Autozone or where ever to get it checked? By the way, how do they check it out of the car?
 
New alternator is installed. And the car is running wonderfully! The alternator took like, 20 minutes to put in. All in all, it took about an hour and a half. I had taken off my exhuast to get better access so that's why it took longer. But, I think I didn't tighten one of the bolts or so, because I believe my exhuast is rattling against something. That's what it feels like at least. I'm checking tomorrow. Enough work for the night.
 
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