Removing Alternator

[Marccus]

Need quick help; I'm running out of daylight.

How do you get at and remove the hidden alternator bolt that lies closest to the front of the car; nearest the radiator??

 

[hawkeye18]

Gotta take the battery and battery tray out if you want to make it easy. 8mm socket for the battery and a 10mm socket + extensions for the tray. Then it should be pretty easy to get to that bottom 14mm bolt with a standard socket.

 

[Marccus]

Yes, I did remove the battery and tray. But its the other 14mm bolt that's closest to the radiator I can't figure out how to get at. All the A/C stuff is in the way and this bolt is underneath the alternator. I can get at all the other three. Two on the left (I'm standing in front of the car) and the one on the right. Do you understan which bolt I'm talking about?

 

[crazy_canadian]

If you're talking about the bolt on the right...
This one should be a 12mm bolt, (at least on my car) and you should get to it with a 6" extension on your socket. The rachet will be flush against the front manifold, but it comes out easly. You can also bend the AC line a little bit if it's in the way. The alt with then be free, and you can pull it out from the battery aera.
The lower left one is removable with a short socket on a 3/8 ratchet.

 

[Marccus]

'89 SHO.

There are four bolts. Standing in front of the car, two bolts are at the rear of the alternator on the left and can easily be removed with a 14mm wrench. One of those bolts is very long and can only be removed when the battery tray is removed. The other bolt is short.

There is a third bolt on the right rear that is easily seen and can be removed with a 14mm socket and a very long extension.

There is a fourth bolt that screws in from the right that is underneath the alternator and to the front of the alternator closest to the radiator. You can see the threads exiting the left of the alternator. There is hardly any room between this bolt and the radiator bottle reservoir.

There is also a large cylinder like A/C part in the way and large A/C pipe. I don't know what this cylinder like looking thing is called.

How do you remove this bolt?

 

[blown86gt]

pretty sure I remember having to remove one of the idler pulleys to get to one of the alt botls on the left side

 

[crazy_canadian]

If it's on a '89, sorry I can't help more than that. Never touched anything than a 95-95 130 amp alternator. I removed it more than a dozen times, but it dosen't help in this situation

 

[JRA2000TL]

That bolt is a royal PITA to get out! I spent over an hour on it when I changed my alternator out on the 89. I finally wound up using a u-joint socket and some extensions, and they were crammed up against that hard a/c line as well. I want to say I used 3" and 6" extensions. I had to keep maneuvering it until somehow I got it wedged in there.

Do you have a u-joint socket? That's the only way I know how to get it out; even then, it took me forever. There's simply no room to work to get at that bolt.

 

[Marccus]

I have a universal joint but it is cumbersome to work with. A U-joint socket would probably be better. Thanks for your help. I glad someone finally could answer my question.

BTW, why do manufacturers design this like this if you can't get at them? The factory and shop Ford mechanica are probably thinking the same thing and cursing the engineers.

Do these guys who actually design the cars think of how you are going to be able to take them apart or do they not just give a sh*t?

 

[rubydist]

mostly they think that anything they design will never fail, so no need to care about servicing it later on.

 

[19sho90]

Hope you got it out alright.
But here
Step one: Remove alternator (Sounds like instructions from Chiltons)

 

[JRA2000TL]

Even using the u-joint it was still difficult for me because the space between the bolt head and that hard a/c line is very little. The u-joint socket needs quite a bit of space for the actual socket part that seats on the bolt head, as well as room to swivel and connect to your ratchet or extension. I cursed violently at mine for awhile, and like I said, I don't remember the exact position I had to maneuver the ratchet to get in there, but it took lots of trial and error and trying to get it at from different angles.

I've always heard of people saying how easy it was to swap an alternator; maybe the spacing is different on a Gen 2. I haven't had to swap mine out in the 95 yet, knock on wood. I know for the Gen I's that bottom bolt is horrible.

This is probably one of those situations where a gear wrench would come in handy due to the lack of space.

 

[lincster2]

The wide world of tools

Well the more you know about tools the better off you'll be. I've seen mechanic friends use all sorts of socket extensions, uinversal joints & "wobble head" socket extensions. Just check out the internet for more info.
I was really suprised that my friends would take off a whole bunch of stuff to access the needed areas.. when I thought about it seemed too make sense.. too make things easier you have to remove stuff.
As far as the AC line that in the way I just push it aside slighty ...... don't be worried that it might break, it only needs to be push aside slighty.

I think that Harbor Freight has a large selection of relatively cheap tools or check out the "craigslist.org" for used tools.