CRAP! 3.4L DOHC alternator AGAIN (I think)

[GnatGoSplat]

The alternator in the 94 vert died again, I think. Wife called, she was stranded when the car died in traffic. She had to get it towed home. She said before it died, it was idling bad, CHECK GAUGES was lit, and DIS screen and radio went nuts. Something got stinky and there was smoke underhood. I'm hoping it's just the alt and nothing serious.

 

Last time I did the alt was probably 6-8 years ago, I barely remember what it was like and obviously can't even remember when I did it. I remember it was a PITA, but not really that bad. I think I pulled the half-shaft to change it, just removed the caliper, hub bolts, and yanked the axle and hub out as an assembly as I recall. I think it was pretty easy because I had an axle puller rented from O'Reillys (slide hammer with C-adapter on the end). If anything else had to come out, I don't remember it. I thought after pulling the half-shaft that the rest was cake.

 

Now that I have to do it again and it's crazy freakin hot out there, I want to fix it the absolute laziest way possible. I looked over the procedure we have in the FAQ, it involves dropping the right side of the subframe AND undoing the tierod. Is it necessary to do BOTH? GM revised procedure 63-64-07A says to lower the subframe ONLY. The only difference between that and our FAQ is the GM procedure assumes lowering the rear of the subframe instead of the right side. Alternatively, is this procedure:

http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/34Performance/alternator.html

He removes ONLY the tierod and does NOT lower the subframe. It might make some difference that I have the open-frame alternator.

 

Thoughts?

[Breakdown]

Um . . . there's a small chance depends if anyone's looked under the hood, but that could just as easily be the serpentine belt. I'll hope it was that instead . . . slightly easier to fix and less costly than a new/rebuilt alternator.

[GnatGoSplat]

Nah, I doubt it. Wife said CHECK GAUGES was lit for awhile before it died, and I'm sure the car would have died a quite spectacular death from overheating if she managed to drive it 6+ miles in busy traffic with no water pump circulation in this weather. I'll obviously check that first, but I think the gauge would have shot up to red pretty fast and I'd like to think my wife would have noticed that (she said all gauges looked fine to her).

[slick]

I wasn't able to pull the alternator out without undoing the tie rod end. Maybe you can.

 

I undid the complete right side to give me plenty of room. I left the drivers side alone. I suppose you could do the rear two bolts instead of the right two bolts, never tried that way though.

 

I do remember that once I had the alternator disconnected (bolts and wiring), I had to rotate, or maybe flip it around, before I could pull it out.

 

I know I could do it again (hell I think it did it 3 times that year), but I'm positive that there are things I am forgetting now.

[GnatGoSplat]

Thanks Chris. I think I followed SappySE Ben's instructions when I did it originally with pulling axle/hub as an assembly.

I might try it the same way you did this time, save me the extra trip of having to borrow the slide hammer and C-shaped axle puller. I have that fancy Kent-Moore ball joint/tie rod puller tool so I can pull that out pretty easily. I'd rather lower the right side subframe than the rear, because I hate undoing that pinch bolt on the intermediate shaft. I remember a vinyl shroud giving me a hard time on that. You didn't bother with that pinch bolt, did you? Did you bother with loosening the subframe bolts on the left side? Did you have to lower the subframe very much?

[White93z34]

you don't have to pull the steering pinch bolt if you are only lowering the pass side of the cradle. i've never loosened the driver side bolts at all to do it in the past.

 

Last I did it was on my old euro 3.4 and I think all i removed was the shield around the CV boot, popped the tie rod end and lowered the cradle and wedged it out. i want to say i had the steering turned all the way to one side to make the inner boot go further back in.

 

I always hear about people getting the axle stuck in the wheel bearing, how does that happen? I live in the rust belt and I've yet to encounter a really stuck one. more over if you are pulling the axle you can pull the hub + axle without taking the axle nut off.

[slick]

I've had a few axles stuck in the wheel bearings, all from rust or corrosion.

 

Ask Rob about when we did the wheel bearing in my Bonneville!!

[slick]

Thanks Chris. I think I followed SappySE Ben's instructions when I did it originally with pulling axle/hub as an assembly.

I might try it the same way you did this time, save me the extra trip of having to borrow the slide hammer and C-shaped axle puller. I have that fancy Kent-Moore ball joint/tie rod puller tool so I can pull that out pretty easily. I'd rather lower the right side subframe than the rear, because I hate undoing that pinch bolt on the intermediate shaft. I remember a vinyl shroud giving me a hard time on that. You didn't bother with that pinch bolt, did you? Did you bother with loosening the subframe bolts on the left side? Did you have to lower the subframe very much?

 

Never had to mess with the steering, let alone turn the wheel any direction.

 

I let the subframe come down as much as it could, then put my jack under it and jacked it back up a pump or two, so it wasn't just hanging, but actually resting on my jack.

 

Never had to touch the bolts on the left side.

[GnatGoSplat]

Sounds good, thanks guys. I'll take a crack at it when I get home from work tonight. Hooray for sweating buckets and cussing at an alternator rather than relaxing and napping in the comfort of air-conditioning.

 

I've never actually had an axle stuck in the hub. They usually come out pretty easily with the screw type axle puller, but yeah, I didn't separate the hub from axle last time I did the alt.

[GnatGoSplat]

Okay, I attempted this last night. Key word: attempted. I don't know what it is, maybe incompetence comes with age? I couldn't do the whole job in 45-minutes. Hell, it took 30-minutes just to pull airbox, disconnect battery, remove reservoir, pull the belt, jack up car, set on jackstands, and remove wheel, all in lovely 90s "heat advisory" weather.

 

First, I can't get the right side of the subframe to drop more than 3/4". If I wedge the jack rod between subframe and body and push, I'm able to open that up to a whole 1".

The bottom and top bolts - easy!

The rear bracket bolt - impossible! I had to slowly inch it out and the wrench fell off hundreds of times so it'd take time just to re-orient it on the bolt. I don't know how I did it the first time. Magnetic sockets would be an awesome invention if they don't already exist. If they exist, I need a set! I had to get both hands in there, one to hold the socket still and the other to push the ratchet while keeping it straight so it wouldn't fall off the bolt. It's one of those situations where the bolt is too tight to spin out with fingers, but too loose for the ratchet. I took so long, my wife even insisted to give it a shot, but she wasn't any more successful. I eventually got it inched out.

After I got the alternator loose, even that stupid power cable nut was fighting me. It was tight the whole time, and I couldn't hold the alternator very still with it being loose so that probably took over 10 minutes for one stupid nut which should be easy.

Getting it out, oh man what a pain. There is not a single way to orient the thing where it would come out easily. I definitely had to turn the wheel to pull the inner tierod all the way in AND disconnect the outer tierod. Even then, I tried rotating it on all 3 axis to try to get the thing out. Major impediment there is the bend in the heater pipe that was in the way. Had it not been for that, I wouldn't have had to pull the tierod. I finally did get it out, and then had to rotate it a different direction to clear some other stuff. The whole time I was wishing I'd just pulled the halfshaft as it would have left plenty of room to pull it out.

 

Total time spent so far: 3 HOURS and 5-minutes, and I'm only HALFWAY DONE! It was too late by the time I was finished to make it to the auto parts store to get a new alternator.

 

It was definitely significantly easier and much faster for me to pull the halfshaft. I don't remember how long it took, but I know I got the whole job done in one pass and I remembered thinking it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. This time, it felt MUCH worse than I thought it would be. I would have drank copious amounts of beer if I'd had any. Any confidence I had in my mechanical abilities - down the shitter.

 

I have no idea how I'm going to get the new alternator into the same space that I pulled the old one out of. I may end up giving up and just pulling the halfshaft anyway, but I hope I don't have to since I've already gotten this far.

 

So far I have learned that:

1. Age must bring incompetence, because this job shouldn't have sucked this bad or taken this long.

2. I liked Ben's halfshaft method much better.

3. Perhaps doing it the GM way of removing pinch bolt and lowering the rear subframe instead, IF that allowed the subframe to drop up to the 4" max that they specify, it would have come out easier and I'm sure tierod would not need to be disconnected.

 

Sure wish I'd got this done last night like I planned. Now I'm going to have a crappy Friday night too.

Edited July 23, 2010 by GnatGoSplat

[Breakdown]

Read my signature.

 

If you car is still in a non-arson state, you're probably ahead of the game.

 

Good luck and God bless.

[mra32]

I feel your pain...Ive been working on my car in the 90-95 humid days we've been having. I was in direct sunlight. Sucked ass. I always think putting stuff back together on a job like this easier. Usually the opposite is true.

[GnatGoSplat]

Well, luckily I have a garage to work in, although sometimes the garage acts as an oven.

 

Anyway, got it done last night. Time to reassemble: 3 HOURS 45-MINUTES.

 

Actually, getting it in was no problem. What took so long is the two lower bolts were fighting me the whole time. I could get one threaded, but not both, and I dropped the rear bolt a dozen times trying to thread it and wasted tons of time hunting for it.

 

I thought the battery had enough charge to crank the car since it started right up Thursday night, but I guess I thought wrong because it wouldn't crank yesterday. I set the car on the charger overnight and just tried it out this morning. No warning lights, and looked good at first because it went from 12.6V engine off to 13.4V engine running, but then it dropped again. Now it fluctuates in the high 12s and volts doesn't really increase with engine off vs running. Seems this alternator isn't so great. I guess I'll let her drive it awhile like this and hope there isn't a problem with the new alt.

 

So total time for the job: 7-HOURS 50-MINUTES, just shy of 8 hours. I need to set it on fire and roll it down a hill (or cliff).

[slick]

Wow, that sucks. I never had any of the above mentioned issues!

[GnatGoSplat]

Wow, that sucks. I never had any of the above mentioned issues!

 

You just don't suck as much as I do!

 

I guess it's not a strong alternator, it's in low 13s most of the time and she said once it even dipped down to 11.6V, but the alternator itself thinks it's okay (no CHECK GAUGES light), so I think it's probably alright. Maybe it just needs broken in (hoping).

[RobertISaar]

FWIW: the GP's CS130 starts off at 14.1-14.2 volts from a cold start and winds itself down to 13.8-13.9 at hot idle after a long trip...

[Schurkey]

I guess it's not a strong alternator, it's in low 13s most of the time and she said once it even dipped down to 11.6V, but the alternator itself thinks it's okay (no CHECK GAUGES light), so I think it's probably alright. Maybe it just needs broken in (hoping).

Alternators don't "break in".

 

Considering the problems in replacing alternators, wouldn't it make sense to have the ENTIRE STARTING/CHARGING POWER TEAM professionally tested? It's not at all difficult; but requires a huge ammeter that ordinary people can't afford. (A somewhat acceptable substitute involves buying a cheap (but typically not very accurate) inductive ammeter to use along with an ordinary multimeter)

 

It's VERY easy for a defective battery to produce similar symptoms to a defective alternator; or to a defective starter. A defective starter can act like a defective battery. The O-N-L-Y way to know for sure is to test ALL the components including the wire harness that connects 'em all.

 

But, yeah, if you don't have ~14.2 volts with the engine running (and the voltmeter isn't defective) there's certainly problems SOMEWHERE.

[GnatGoSplat]

I would think anything mechanical can "break in". For instance, there could be a coating of grease, oil, oxidation, or excess varnish-type coating on the brushes or commutator that would eventually wear off.

 

Nah, I don't have anything "professionally" done on my cars because not only am I lazy, but also incredibly cheap and professional work would probably exceed the value of the car.

 

I doubt the battery is defective. It holds a charge, cranks effortlessly, and is only about 6-months old. For all intensive purposes, replacing the alternator has completely fixed the car. The only issue is the volts are not consistently in the 13s, though my wife has reported no issues and already put well over 100-miles on the car since I replaced the alternator.

 

~14.2V? I've never had an alternator that put out that kind of voltage. Usually always in the 13s.

[AL]

It should be putting out ~14.2 yes, but not at idle... Raise the rpms to about 2k rpms and then check and see what kind of voltage its putting out

[RobertISaar]

FWIW: The GP doesn't seem to care what RPM it's at... just how long it's been running, and what has been turned on... at 2K, it's still between 13.8 and 14.2.

 

brakes alone makes it drop to 13.6, wipers, defogger and headlights also produce similar effects.

[GnatGoSplat]

I suppose lots of power-robbing accessories like HUD, DIS, ECC, and aftermarket radio could be why I never see 14s normally.