Alternator Replacement Procedure:
1. Write down all of your radio station presets (optional)
2. Disconnect negative battery cable (most assuredly NOT optional)
5/16" wrench works well
3. Jack up the right front corner of the car
4. Put a jack stand under the car.
5. Remove the right front wheel
6. Remove the two plastic splash shields (you pull the plastic
center pins out of the fasteners to remove).
7. Use a 14 mm wrench to remove tension from the accessory belt
(turn wrench clockwise on the bolt in the center of the idler pulley).
8. Move the belt off of a pulley to remove tension from it.
9. Remove the 10 mm bolt holding the splash shield onto the
alternator
10. Unsnap the splash shield from the alternator.
11. Unbolt the cable running from the alternator to the starter AT THE
STARTER.
12. Carefully pry the clip up from the other alternator connector and
remove it from the alternator. Be careful not to break the clip off of
the connector.
13. Remove the upper alternator bolt (13 mm) from above.
14. Remove the lower alternator bolt (13 mm) from below.
15. Remove alternator down through the wheel well.
You now have the alternator with a 1 ft cable attached. You need to
remove this. The Chilton's manual suggests using a 13 mm wrench that
is only about 60 thousands of an inch thick to hold the stud coming
from the alternator (to prevent it from turning). Such wrenches are
quite difficult to find. I removed the cable from the alternator by
putting two 10 mm nuts on the top of the stud and tightening them
against each other. Then, I used one 10 mm wrench to loosen the nut
holding the cable while using another 10 mm wrench against the bottom
of the two 10 mm nuts that I put at the top.
The bottom line in working without the stud coming out from the
alternator is you don't want to put any torque on it with respect to
the alternator. It is (ahem) not a robust design. When you get this
cable off, put it on the same position on the new alternator and
tighten it similarly (using something to hold the stud into the
alternator to keep it from turning. Either a very thin 13 mm wrench,
or the double nut trick. Then reverse steps 15 to 1 in reverse order.
