For the first time ever I had to have my beloved 'fat chic' towed home. Saturday I was out tooling around paying bills when I hear a bang, and several ExpensiveNoises from the engine compartment.
I remove myself from the roadway and find that the threaded section of my alternator shaft decided it wanted a divorce from the rest of the alternator, fortunately the rear pulley half was flung out of harms way and no shims escaped the engine compartment.
So I buy a 'rebuilt' alternator at autozone, which arrived today. It is a bosch 4 wire. I am replacing a motorola 4 wire. Now my engine is on the ground, fan shroud off, alternator in my hand.
I shim out the fan to fit the shroud with the new alternator and tighten the fan retaining nut. So far, so good.
Having done that I see that the front of the alternator has a 'recess' for lack of a better term between the shaft and the front bearing race. It looks like there should be a shim in there, and perhaps the overhaul people forgot to include it, but the shim from the motorola alternator does not fit, and the picture from the not-so-helpful install directions included with my rebuilt unit show that "recess" I am talking about here, leading me to believe that I am supposed to remove a part from my existing unit and put it on the new one. The problem is my 'old piece' doesn't fit the new alternator.
Unless something on the shaft protrudes slightly from the front bearing cover, I have a problem, because as soon as I put the pulley adapter on the shaft it his the front of the alternator case. Obviously, it cannot work like this.
Anyone run into this before?
Chris