Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:48:34 -0700
Reply-To: Brian Jarvinen <brianvwagain@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Brian Jarvinen <brianvwagain@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: water-cooled alternator bracket
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
The fun began with one of those sounds you don't want
to hear,
the alternator belt squeal. So I open it (84 stock
1.9L - "Martha")
up with a friend of mine, owner of an air-cooled 82,
to see just
what is going on. The belt is perfectly tight...but
the alternator
is fairly loose. The bracket you use to tighten the
belt is snug,
and the alternator is snug in it's own little bracket
underneath,
but the underlying bracket is completely loose. Even
more
puzzling, you can feel (but not see), that one of the
mounting
nuts is definitely loose...but there is only one stud
to mount it on.
You would think there would be two studs and
eventually Bentley
confirms this. In the short run without getting into a
bigger project
we decide to tighten the one nut just to drive Martha
home. I get it
finger-tight but there is no way to get a wrench on to
this nut. My
friend had a great inspiration to put the head of a
flat-head
screwdriver on one of the faces of the nut and tap it
down and
this helped get the nut perhaps another half-turn. But
by the next
day the squeal is back and clearly something had to be
done.
When I took the alternator off I at first thought,
Eureka!, no problem
to tighten it when the alternator isn't there, but no,
the bracket itself
prevents this. The bracket is mounted via two studs
that come out
of the block. Luckily, the missing stud seems to have
vibrated all
the way out, rather than breaking, something I've
experienced far
too many times with exhaust studs. But after replacing
the stud,
and even to get the stud all the way into the block -
how to ever
get a wrench on these nuts? What prevents this is a
coolant pipe
coming out of the head, with a couple nuts and a
gasket, no problem
there, but the other end disappears into the water
pump without a
gasket and must use some sort of internal
seal...doesn't seem too
fun to touch this, and in fact this seal, which may be
more accurately
known as a "water pump sealing washer" is not that
simple to come
by and ten days later is still on back-order. (I
ordered it and the gasket
just in case). Finally after looking into special
ordering an extra short
wrench (a couple extra days where I live), I had
another Eureka! - I
could just have a regular wrench cut down to size at a
welding shop.
I bought a new 13mm box-end/open-end wrench and had it
cut in half. the guy at the shop kindly even buffed
off the ragged
edges. With my new 2" long wrenches I was able to get
both nuts
tightened from the side. I had been comtemplating
making extra long wrenches to get at them from
underneath but both were accessible
off to the side. Fortunately I had both wrenches as
one side needed
the open end to turn it and the other side could be
turned with far
longer turns via the closed end.
So there you have it, if your alternator bracket needs
tightening
and you'd rather not open that coolant line, there is
a work-around.
Much like I'll never travel without a hack-saw ever
again, I'll keep my
shorty wrenches around a while I think.
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