Hey guys
ChrisFix here
and today im going to show you how to replace a alternator
this is a really simple job that you can do yourself in most cases there's no
special tools and to figure out how easy the job is going to be all you have to
do is locate your alternator in my truck
you can see the alternator is right at the top which makes it really easy to
get to
if your alternator's near the top of the engine the job is going to be simple if
the alternator is buried it could be more difficult if you're not sure if
your alternator is bad i have a video that shows you how to test an alternator
so check that out it's really simple and you could do it yourself a link to that
video will be in the description
here's where my alternators having a problem when the engine goes about four
thousand rpms the battery light comes on and the voltmeter that's built into my
truck
it just drops there should be 14.2 volts will not even getting that I'm getting
like 10 volts nine volts once the RPM to about four thousand rpms so not only is
the alternator shot but i'm running a large light bar up top
some lights in the rear as well as off road lights in the front so I want a
larger alternator to keep up with my electrical demand stock alternators 95
amps and the new alternator is a hundred and thirty amps and if you're curious to
where I got this alternator I'll go put a link in description below as always
that pretty good prices and they got to me really quickly so let's go get
started and changing this out here all the tools you need to do the job we have
a ratchet extension and different sized sockets metal wire brush
flathead screwdriver and PCs and we have a torque wrench breaker bar and the only
specialty tool that you don't really need but i have is this serpentine belt
tool that helps get the serpentine belt off
you could always just use your breaker bar or a long wrench
so let's begin anytime you work on the electrical system the first thing you
want to do especially when changing out the alternator take off the negative
terminal on your battery
make sure it's not getting grounded out now you're good to work on the
alternator
the next step is you need to access your alternator
so try to make your life easier and make as much room as possible we really don't
want to take off this coolant hose because then you get cool and everywhere
but what we can do is take off this intake hose which is really easy to do
to get the intake hose off there is
a hose clamp right over here use a flathead screwdriver
now we're just going to disconnect this hose that's over here and just wiggle
this off
good we come over here to our mass air flow sensor disconnect the little mass
air flow sensor electrical clip we could just take this off just like that always
always remove your filters you don't damage it and look at that we have easy access
right here
now let's go take the belt off to remove the belt they do make a special tool
that helps remove belts
i'll put a link in description to where you can get it you don't need to use
this it's just like a long ratchet if you have a breaker bar that's kind of
narrow and skinny
you can use that or if you have a long wrench in this case this is 15
millimeter and what you're going to do is going to go down into the pulleys and
look for the tensioner pulley so you can see right down in here we go over here
the tensioner pulley is the spring-loaded pulley right there and
that's how you relieve the belt tension to just go down in here
get the tool on the end of the bolt of the tensioner and just take it and you
pull the ratchet the tool whatever you have towards you and that pushes the
pulley against the tensioner spring so you relieve the pressure and you can see
now the belt is nice and loose and since we're only taking off the alternator and
make your life a lot easier to just take off the belt on the alternator and i'll
leave the belt popped in here so it doesn't come apart and unwrapped from
around these pollies just in case if it does you can see right here
it's got the diagram of how the belts rat around the police now let's go take
the alternator off taking the alternator off is really easy you can check your
brand-new alternator to see how many bolted has you can see one two and then
one at the bottom is 3 so we're going to be looking for three bolts to take off
looking at this alternator
there's one there's two there's three
so we're good to go before we do that I want to check the back of the alternator
see what connections you have here you can see that there's three connections
that this little one here got a larger clip right here and we have the positive
cable coming
here I usually like to get these off before I remove the alternator
especially since there's plenty of room to get to him back here so let's go do
that
so the first cable we're going to take off is the red battery cable
this is the power from the alternator to the battery runs all the way up over to
the battery
- 10 millimeter and you suck it over that good
although our negative terminal is technically disconnected just cover this
up so it doesn't groundout
better to be safe than sorry you can even get some black electrical tape if
you want but that's good enough
ok now we're going to remove this connector and this connector flathead
screwdriver might help
that's one
that's too now if you remove this wiring harness and move it up to the side
removing the actual alternator is really easy we'll start off with this front
bolt here
there's three bolts total going to use a breaker bar with these bolts are kind of
tough on here
the original alternator cars 2001 so it's pretty old
good broke that free will do the bolt that's up here broke that free and then
there's one more bolt right back here
okay all three bolts are broken free now we can loosen them up all the way it's
one that's two and three
now i can pull out the old one now what the alternator out we have this
alternator bracket here and you just want to get a piece of sandpaper or in
this case I have a metal wire brush and just want to clean up the connection
where the alternator actually sits on here because the alternator is grounded
to the block through this bracket so the better the connection to the alternator
the better your electrical system will perform
you also want to grab the bolts and clean off the bolts you can see here
there's all this white corrosion on the threads here
you want to have a good connection so it's good to clean this off and that
cleaned up very nicely
so we're going to get even better connection now so with all the bolts
cleaned up and with the connections here all cleaned up
let's go put the new alternator on as always when i'm installing two new parts
i like to put them side by side make sure that they look right you can see
this alternator is definitely bigger but the bracket mounting spots are the same
and the alternator pulley itself is the same size so it looks like we are good
to go
and just for anybody who's doing this project on a Ford pickup truck or ford
SUV or the mazda pickup truck mazda SUV the four hole pattern here indicates the
95 amp alternator and the two hole pattern here indicates a hundred 30 amp
alternator just something good to know especially if you're looking for parts
in the junkyard
you're trying to find this alternator in the junkyard or something you know
that's the 130 and then this is the 95
now we're going to get our new alternator put in place
one thing you might consider on these bolts as anti-seize just put a little
bit on and using just a little bit of anti-seize like that on the threads are
just make it that much easier to get off if you ever need to replace this in the
future
now we'll get our top bolt in you just want to get it started
now we're going to get the next to in reason why you just want to get started
because you want to be able to move this alternator around to make sure you get
the next bolt in its position and then this last one should slide right in
just like so now with all three bolts hand tightened and thread it in
we could start tightening them down you don't want to tighten them down all the
way
just get them snug and then we'll talk from them
so now that all these are snug
we're going to get our torque wrench and set it between 30 and 40 foot pounds i'm
doing thirty eight foot pounds 1 2
three now all we have to do is connect these wires connect our intake here and
we're ready to go for a test drive plug that in love that in make sure you have
a good connection in here to use your metal wire brush just to make sure it's
clean or some sandpaper whatever you got
take the nut off slip the power cable over the stud and hand-tighten good but
make sure you slide this protective boot over that just feels at any water and
also prevents any unintentional grounding or arking
good so we got our top connected connected that middle one connected and
our power line connected make sure that we have our plastic piece here over the
alternator
it's just the heat shield that protects the alternator from the excess heat now
we're just going to get the belt on the alternator and you see it doesn't fit
until we pull this
good the belt is on here correctly on the rest of the pulleys correctly now we
can take off our belt tool just inspect to make sure that the belt is on all the
pulleys correctly it's in the middle
it's not on the edge plus the belt was a little loose
looks good see if it's right on perfect
everything looks good on the tensioner now let's put on the air intake and
let's go for a rod drop our filter back in place
this clicks in just like so you want to make sure that this hose goes all the
way around your intake just like so there's no gap here now we can get our
flat head screwdriver to tighten this down
good remember to connect our PCV hose here
good make sure you plug in the mass air flow sensor one last thing to do connect
our negative terminal and let's go for a ride
all right let's start it up and see what we get
so we've been driving around for a few minutes and I'm gonna slow down here and give it gas
to drop a gear and hit over four thousand rpms
beautiful everything is working perfectly
and that is a job well done and that's how you properly replace an alternator
hopefully this video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up if
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