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[Warning! – this will only be of interest to fellow complete novices who are really interested in changing their alternator bushings themselves, regardless of the financial consequences!]
I got through removal of my alternator this past weekend.
To start, I collected the Townsend site instructions and those written by Charles Stoyer of Golden, CO (posted on this BB). Charles sounded very frustrated, writing that he had spent almost three long days replacing his alternator, and wished he had had good instructions like the ones he posted. Armed as I was with this knowledge, I knew it wasn’t going to happen to me! One morning ought to be enough.
Saturday morning I started by disconnecting the battery negative ground (this time without inducing a spark with my socket wrench by briefly touching across to the positive terminal as I had done previously). I then disconnected the alternator wires.
The next step depends on whether you are a follower of Townsend or Stoyer. Townsend says remove the alternator belts; Stoyer says get the heater hoses out of the way (which Townsend thinks you can maneuver the alternator through). I went with Stoyer here – I could not see how you could get the alternator past the heater hoses.
Next Stoyer says remove the reservoir (he calls it the “coolant overflow tank”). This seemed like overkill to me – that is really not in the way, so I left it alone. He also says to remove its hose (the big one) and that does turn out to be necessary, but not obvious to me at this point, so I leave it, too.
Now it was time to loosen the alternator belt tension and remove the tension-adjusting bolt from the alternator. Here I had seen Monster’s post on his water pump, decrying the “2000” flips of his small wrench, rotating about 15 degrees per flip, and 15 minutes it took to loosen the a/c tension bolt. The post is accurate, except it took me “only” 230 flips.
At this point Stoyer says remove the bolt holding the alternator bracket at the back of the engine with a 6mm Allen key. My large ball-end hex key would not fit in there. No way. Townsend says “removing the a/c belt and loosening the two 6mm Allen’s holding the top of the compressor to the head now will ease later stages”. I loosened the a/c belt tension - another 230 flips. I also loosened the two 6 mm Allens holding the top of the compressor to its bracket after a LOT of sweat – those things were in tight! Just loosening actually looked pretty useless so I opted to remove them entirely.
Now I tried to remove the 12mm bolt holding the alternator bracket and a/c compressor mount so I could get the compressor out of the way, but that was not possible. No socket could get in there, and the regular wrench I had was too straight. Then I tried to get at the long 17mm bolt that actually holds the alternator to the bracket. It has nuts on each end. No way to get at that one either. I needed both a 12mm and a 17mm combination- 12-point-angled-at-the-end wrench, and a different way to get that 6mm off the alternator bracket, so it was off to Sears.
At Sears I spoke to Tim the Tool Man about the problem with the 6mm bolt holding the alternator bracket at the back. He suggested going to the SAAB dealer – they probably have a special tool for that! Wow! Not the world’s most helpful suggestion at 4 pm on a Saturday! I ended up getting a smaller 6mm hex key, and the 12mm and 17mm combination wrenches I also needed, and (while I was there) a set of extensions for my 3/8” drive socket set and 13mm and 6mm combination wrenches since those sizes seem to be all over the place on SAABs. It cost me nearly $100 for all these, by the way. Dimmed the economic payback for this job considerably.
Back at work – the 12mm combination wrench worked to get off the bolt on the bracket and a/c compressor mount, and the smaller 6mm worked to get off the bolt on the back of the engine. I then moved the a/c compressor and its bracket up to the top of the engine to give me more room. It was now late, so I decided to tackle the rest on Sunday.
Sunday cooked breakfast for my daughter’s slumber party then got to work. The 17mm combination worked to undo the long bolt, and the trick of swiveling the alternator and bracket toward the back of the engine to get that bolt out works really well – no need to remove the last 6mm bolt at the bottom of the alternator bracket until the alternator is out.
Did I mention that the brake master servo assist line had squeeze clips at either end which, no matter how you turn them, scratch your arm each time you reach in to this space? I should have.
It looked to me like the alternator still had no room to come out, so I then siphoned out the reservoir and removed the hose connecting it to the water pump.
Then remove alternator. This is the easiest part.
Now don’t forget that the bushings go in the holes on the alternator bracket for 17mm long bolt with the flanges on the inside, no matter how logical it may seem to put them on the outside. If you forget this you will install them twice, and it is much easier to get them in than to get them out. Trust me. The other two bushings for the alternator adjustment bracket are more obvious.
Installation is the reverse of removal. Monster had warned about crossing the belts – it is really hard to see in there, and I did cross them the first time, but double checked before tightening and fixed it. Thanks, Monster.
When everything was back together, I realized that I had forgotten to put on the water pump hose to the reservoir. The reservoir end is easy, but the water pump end is – well, lets just say it is a lot easier with the a/c lifted up. I got it on by pushing on it and tightened the hose clamp with a screwdriver – then only tool that would fit in there that I had. Got the thermostat off and flushed out the coolant with the hose on the heater hose, then in putting the heater hose back on dropped the clamp and could not find it. That necessitated a quick trip to Pep Boys at 5:30 pm on Sunday (open until 6 pm, fortunately). Got the thermostat back on and broke some wire-support thing (not the wires themselves) on the side of the distributor body – this looks really bad. Taped it back on with duct tape. Refilled with $11.50/gal Mercedes coolant per Townsend suggestion. Miraculously, the engine starts and everything holds. Bleed all air out. Case seems closed.
Postscript: (don’t you always wonder how things really turn out?)
Then next day I drove up 60 miles north of Boston for charity golf tournament at the Myopia Hunt and Polo Club (the sort of place I will certainly never be able to afford membership to). On the way back decide to stop at the SAAB dealer (128 SAAB in Wakefield) to ask about the distributor thingy. Mechanic (Graham) comes out to look at it and notices there is a “big” coolant leak. Sure enough the reservoir is empty. I explain about the water pump hose I barely got on – it is now clearly off. He returns with a 1/4” drive on a 30 inch extension with a 7mm swivel socket at the end. With this, he loosens the clamp, nudges the hose into proper position, retightens the hose, and refills with SAAB coolant (oh, well – probably still OK, even if no longer all Mercedes). He tells me I should get a junk distributor with good parts and swap them to fix the wire-support thingy. Won’t let me pay for anything.
Literally as I am driving out toward the street the car starts running rough and dies. I nurse it back to the service area and tell Graham. They bring it in and, one hour later, have done a beautiful epoxy job on the distributor thingy that Graham will not guarantee will last forever. It is a work of art. It looks like a smooth knob of the side of the distributor. That cost $72. And the story ends.
I learned a lot about my car. I got some more tools. I got a part fixed on my distributor which was in really bad shape anyway by an artist of a mechanic. Would I do it again? Sure – it will be much easier the next time!
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