Hey guys, I had the thrilling experience of losing voltage the other day. While driving home the other night the instrument cluster got dim, the car started running like shit and every icon on the dash lit up with the volt gauge showing a little over 8. Barely got the car to the house. I plugged in to get codes, all low voltage codes. Out of her 86,xxx tour of duty this is the first time she almost left me stranded. Anyway, I went ahead and replaced the original battery and alternator and all is now well.

I'm not a big DIY'r, brakes/oil/plugs are about it. So I had a friend relpace the alternator and I "helped". It was a lot easier than I had expected and maybe these pics will be of use to another member. I have never tried to post a DIY, so bear with me.


Beginning with the removal of the belly pan. The alternator was able to be finessed out of its place by removing the serpentine belt from the pulley, removing the two oil lines originating from the oil filter location, and removing the intercooler hose. After that there are two hex bolts to the front (bumper side) of the alternator to be removed ( I believe they were 6mm) And there were two wires to be removed from the rear of the alternator, one a plug type connection the other was held on by a nut.



^^ The IC hose to remove and brackets to remove.


^ Here is one of the hex type bolts on the alternator the other is towards the top of the alternator (couldnt get a good pic of that one)



^ Here is the plug to remove and the other wire to remove is located above it (also hard to get a pic)