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I hate my life right now...

B

Beowulf

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Sep 26, 2002
Messages
973
Location
Pacific NW, USA
my alternator died today.


Have you LOOKED at the how-to?

Dear sweet lord in hell.

I can't replace it until NEXT weekend. Motherf-er.
 
I am replacing mine on Sunday!!! The parts have been ordered and I am doing it in a friends garage! I know a tech at a ford dealership right up the street. He ordered everything at employee prices and gunna help me do the swap too!!!
 
Oh yeah, and the garage is full of the roomies stuff, so it is driveway mechanic time.

I know I can do it, it is just that I don't want to.
 
Get 'stasia to help you after she's done hers. She's probably got WAY slimmer hands and wrists. I'm over 6' and skinny as a rake* and I scratched up my forearms something awful jamming them in there. Torque wrench? Fugedaboudit!

* or at least I USED to be.
 
sleepr said:
Get 'stasia to help you after she's done hers. She's probably got WAY slimmer hands and wrists. I'm over 6' and skinny as a rake* and I scratched up my forearms something awful jamming them in there. Torque wrench? Fugedaboudit!

* or at least I USED to be.
Click to expand...

I like it when women work on cars. ;)

I am just not looking forward to the week I am hitching rides to work.

Other people's schedules suck.
 
I just replaced to battery harness (yeah the whole thing) on my SE, and that was only a taste of what the alt. will be. Im sure its tough but Ive found you need patience when working on our cars.
-tropictour
 
Wow dude, that really sucks. I have to do the same on a friend's '96 SE soon. I imagine mine will go out eventually...I'm over 136,000 miles.

Do you want some help? I might be able to sneak out there for an afternoon.
 
shotwell said:
Wow dude, that really sucks. I have to do the same on a friend's '96 SE soon. I imagine mine will go out eventually...I'm over 136,000 miles.

Do you want some help? I might be able to sneak out there for an afternoon.
Click to expand...

HAHA.

Sucker. ;)

If you want to drive up to Covington to share in my agony, you would be more than welcome.

Weather permitting, go time will be on Saturday. I have to see if I can find any of my tools (garage is PACKED to the rafters).

I will probably go out Friday to get some more extensions and whatnot....
 
Beowulf said:
my alternator died today.


Have you LOOKED at the how-to?
Click to expand...

Uhm, yeah... I've seen it. :D

Its no biggie man.. It goes quicker than you think, barring something unmentionable (rusted or stuck bolts, broken etc..)

I made the how to incredibly "basic" and, for that matter,drawn out. This is one of the more common failures for us and one that you can stand to save the MOST money on, so I took the time to make it as understandable as possible. It isn't nearly as long as the how-to would make it seem.
 
Replacing the alternator really is not that big of a deal. A lot easier than some people try to make it seem on here.
Ray, you forget to mention in your how-to that you left one of the nuts off that secures that wire harness and one bolt off the alternator bracket.:laugh:
 
??? :confused: ???
:shrug::shrug: The last time I had it out was when I took the pictures for the how-to. You can see everything in there at that time, when I closed it up and snapped the pictures. Now, I'm confused as to how anything was left off.
 
If it wasn't left off, then it fell off. It's cool, the harness nut doesn't matter and Tom had a bolt for the alternator. We found a socket in a subframe rail so I guess some things missing on the car, but it had some extra things too.:cool:
 
HAHA.. I know exactly which one you are talking about.. probably a 13 or 10mm on the lower rear side of the subframe. right next to the lower stab-o-shoc. It fell in there while doing the alternator and (if you've been under there) you can see that there isn't a way to get it out without either dropping the subframe or having a long magnet from the top (which can't be done because the subframe is against the engine at that point
 
Kremithefrog said:
If it wasn't left off, then it fell off. It's cool, the harness nut doesn't matter and Tom had a bolt for the alternator. We found a socket in a subframe rail so I guess some things missing on the car, but it had some extra things too.:cool:
Click to expand...


It is all about the give n' take. When I bought my car, I found a 13mm MAC wrench sitting in the subframe.
 
Ray said:
HAHA.. I know exactly which one you are talking about.. probably a 13 or 10mm on the lower rear side of the subframe. right next to the lower stab-o-shoc. It fell in there while doing the alternator and (if you've been under there) you can see that there isn't a way to get it out without either dropping the subframe or having a long magnet from the top (which can't be done because the subframe is against the engine at that point
Click to expand...
I don't recall the size but it was easy to fish out with a magnet.
I find tools in and around people's engine bays all the time.

Beowulf, I'd gladly replace your alt for you if you did the work I'm in the middle of on my cars right now. The alt is just in a tight spot, not really hard to do.
 
Kremithefrog said:
I don't recall the size but it was easy to fish out with a magnet.
I find tools in and around people's engine bays all the time.

Beowulf, I'd gladly replace your alt for you if you did the work I'm in the middle of on my cars right now. The alt is just in a tight spot, not really hard to do.
Click to expand...

I can do it, i am capable.
 
Ray said:
Start spillin'! What's up?
Click to expand...
The main headache is fixing my rx7 (trans,etc.).
SVT has little things that need to be done and I'm reversing that thing I told you about months ago that we were trying. Maybe 6 hours to do that. I have subframe connectors that need to go on, need to put a resonator on, need to make the moonroof work correctly, etc. We'll see how much I actually get done by SZ, hopefully atleast a resonator so it'll sound better on the long drive.
 
I hear all the tools I lose in my engine bay bouncing along the undercarraige of my car 2 days later when i'm driving down the highway.
 
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