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Hi! My name is Nate McCullough on behalf of expertvillage.com. In this clip we are going
to talk about the proper way to remove the vehicle's alternator's mounting bolts. This
clip is going to vary from vehicle to vehicle. On this particular vehicle, it is a Ford F150,
we have 2 bolts to deal with. They are both readily exposed and right in front of the
motor. On various other vehicles like you guys said, it will vary widely. Some vehicles
have 2 bolts, some have 3 and some are located in different areas of the alternators and
we will talk about that here in a moment. Right here I've located one of the alternator
mounting bolts. As you can see, this bolt goes through an ear on the alternator and
into a mounting bracket on the motor. Just take your ratchet; this one happens to be
a 10 millimeter, slip it on there and break it loose. These are not a locking style bolts.
As you can see, my ratchet is free wheeling there. Once you've got it broken loose, you
can go ahead and get it out with your fingers.
If you got trouble with your bolt wanting to free wheel on your ratchet, it is a good
idea to take and use your fingers to put some more resistance on the socket so you can get
an effective stroke. As you can see if I go like this, there is no ratcheting action.
The bolt is looser than the resistance built in your socket. What you do is add a little
bit more resistance to the socket and you can then turn it off. The mounting styles
for your alternators vary widely. On this particular vehicle, it has 2 main mounting
bolts. Most commonly you will see 3. They are going to be located on various parts of
the alternator. You want to do a good visual inspection and remove any bolts that looked
like they are potentially alternator bolts. I think we can get this guy out now. Finger
tight. All right, there we have it. That is one of the alternator bolts. It is a good
idea to take it and put it in your pocket or if you have a magnetic stray for your loose
components, you can go ahead and put them on there. We have one more bolt to deal with
here. It is on the other side. We put our ratchet on the end of the bulb that are broken
loose. Once you begin loosening the last mounting nut, you will notice your alternator will
become a little sloppy. That is going to indicate that that is the last bolt that we have to
deal with. If there was another bolt that was run down all the way tight, it would be
apparent that the alternator wouldn't slop around. You can see I am using my fingers
to add a little more effective stroke otherwise it would just be free wheeling on ratchet.
Let's see if we can get this guy out of here. If you are pretty close to finger tight, you
can take and wiggle the alternator around and that will help you unscrew that bolt.
A lot of times the last little bit of the bolts threads will stick through the back
of the mounting bracket. Since they are exposed to air, they may get a little bit corroded
so you notice the bolt will be tight when you break it loose and you will go through
a nice portion of clean thread and it will get a little snug again. You may need to put
your ratchet back on it. As you can see on the bolt, that's that last little bit of corrosion
I was talking about. You can see the nice clean threads. It's going to be tight, loose
and it may get a little tight again.