1999-2009 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
When a charging system check at Advanced Auto Parts told me that the 11-year-old, 130K-mile alternator in my wife’s 9-5 SportWagon was no longer showing up for duty I realized my 4th of July weekend was going to see some unexpected wrenching. So I went online to Saabnet and elsewhere and immediately found a lot of info and even a couple of videos about the process. Some of it was actually useful. Other parts, not so much. So here’s my procedure. Sorry, no video or photos, as I got a bit too grubby to want to use my phone or any of my video cams. And some of this you have to do by feel anyway.
Advanced had the alternator in stock, so I ordered it via their website to get a 15% discount and grabbed a serp belt at the same time. The pulleys weren’t all in stock, so I’ll have to do that later. Sigh. (I know, I know...). But I had to get the car done as I’d be leaving on a biz trip come Monday and needed my car, couldn’t leave my wife without wheels, and really didn’t want to pony up for four hours of labor at my indy.
Anyway, here’s the procedure for doing the job from the top, which is the easiest way and requires the least amount of OPR (other parts removal). And it comes with an up-front caveat: This is NOT a job for first-time DIYers. Almost every description I found says this job is quite hard, and it IS fairly difficult. Or at least unpleasant and a PITA. It’s not a matter of mechanical complexity--it’s purely an access issue. The alternator is well-buried on the back side of the engine, which means you’re working in a very tight area, have to work a bit blind, know how to use tools, and be able to improvise. If you have big hands and/or wrists it’s going to be more of a challenge. I have kinda skinny wrists which was an advantage and left me almost scratch-free.
Disconnect the ground wire to the battery.
Loosen the RF lug bolts.
Jack up the RF corner (fairly high) and put a jack stand under there. You will (probably) be going under the car and want it supported well.
Remove the wheel and stick it under the car for safety in the unlikely event that your jack stand fails.
Remove the plastic fender liners. There is a big one that covers most of the inside of the wheel well and a smaller one that attaches to the big one and also under the car. They are held on with a series of 8mm and 10mm sheet metal screws, except for two on the fender lip that are small Torx. Put these someplace where you’re not going to trip over them and scatter them all over the driveway.
Go under the car and reach up so you can undo the 12mm and 8mm nuts that hold the two wires to the alternator. You can do this blind from up top, but I find it easier to do this from underneath. Take the wires off the alternator and tuck them out of the way. Be careful not to damage the thin one!
Put a piece of 2x4 or 2x6 on your floor jack and slightly jack the engine with the wood against your oil pan. Just move it up an inch. You’re just taking the pressure off some bolts. (I actually skipped this step and it was fine, but you’ll be jacking the engine later so you need to get the jack under the oil pan anyway.
Now take a 16mm socket and remove the 4 bolts that hold the squared-off U-shaped frame on the outboard end of the engine. Then remove the 18mm nut that sits inside the collar at the center of the U. This frame is essentially a upper engine mount that connects the engine to the unibody. There may also be a 10mm bolt in the frame that connects to a little fitting on the air intake. Remove it so you can take the metal frame off the car. I also disconnected a couple of the PCV hoses on the back side of the engine to get them out of the way.
Another poster here, Saabmedic, says to remove the 16mm nut on top of the rear engine mount. That apparently makes jacking the engine easier and makes it easier to get the alternator out. Makes sense and probably worth doing.
With the U-shaped frame out of the way you can see the serpentine belt and the tensioner, which is at the rear outer corner of the engine. The tensioner has a 1/2” square hole in it that is designed for your 1/2” breaker bar. Put the bar into the socket and pull the bar towards the front of the car to release the tension on the serp belt. Use one hand and some muscle to relieve the tension, then slip the belt off the tensioner pulley with the other hand. Gently ease the tensioner to its extended position or put a 3mm Allen wrench in the hole at about the 10 o’clock position on the tensioner to hold it open. As far as I know there’s no harm in letting all the tension off the unit as you are about to remove it. Move the serp belt out of the way so you can get access to the outer side of the tensioner. That comes off next.
For this you’ll need an 8mm Allen key, but first you need to raise the engine some more so you can access the 8mm Allen head bolt that holds the tensioner to the cast aluminum bracket that also holds the alternator. Jack up the engine some more and a regular Allen key will work, OR, you can cut down the short end of an 8mm key so it will fit between the unibody and into the head of the bolt on the tensioner. This one can be tight, so you may need to use a pipe as a cheater or a socket on an extension to crack it loose. Take the bolt out and remove the tensioner.
At this point you’re wondering why you have to remove the tensioner. Well, if you look where the tensioner was, you’ll see a bolt head (either a Torx or a 8mm Allen) set into the side of the cast aluminum bracket that holds the tensioner and the alternator. Note that if your car has a Torx bolt it is either a 50 or 55. The procedures I read differed on the size but none mentioned the bolt being an 8mm Allen as my car has. (This could have been a running production change from the factory.) Anyway, this bolt holds the upper end of the alternator in place. You can access it just fine if you have jacked up the engine, so put whatever will fit on it (the Torx or Allen) and break it loose. It will be pretty tight. My car had the Allen head bolt, so I used a 3/8” drive ratchet with a pipe on it for leverage. Just crack it loose for now. It’s a plated steel bolt going into aluminum and there was no corrosion.
Now go down to the wheel well. If you look into the side of the engine, a few inches aft of the big crankshaft pulley, you can see the bottom end of the alternator. You’ll also be able to see either a Torx or Allen head bolt that holds the bottom of the alternator in place. It’s quite a ways inboard from where you’ll be sitting in the driveway, so pull out some extensions. I used 12”, 6” and 3” extensions on a 3/8” inch ratchet with an 8mm Allen on the business end. And I needed a pipe on the ratchet to break the bolt loose. But once it’s loose it comes right out. No corrosion.
Back up top, remove the upper alternator bolt, then remove the bottom one. The order probably doesn’t really matter.
The alternator will be loose, but still wedged in there because it is a very tight fit into the bracket, but you can get it loose with a long screwdriver. (I have an 18” one for just this kind of thing.) Once you get it loose just ease it down so it’s resting on the top of the intermediate shaft and whatever else it can sit on. It won’t be there long.
Back top, you’ll see the (now empty) aluminum alternator/tensioner bracket. This is held on with four 13mm bolts. It only takes a minute or so to remove and makes getting the alternator out MUCH easier. The are two bolts at the top, their heads toward the firewall, a third about 7” down the outboard side of the bracket and the fourth about 4-5” inboard and 3/4 of the way down the inboard side. You cannot really get to the inboard one with the alternator in the way, which is why we’ve left it until now. Undo the four bolts and the bracket is out. Set it aside.
Alternatively, according to Saabmedic who posts here, you can skip removing the bracket and have lots of room to get the alternator out if you undo the 16mm bolt on the rear engine mount. It lets you jack the engine up further. Makes sense, so give it a shot.
Whichever you choose to do, now reach down into “the hole” and grab the alternator. You need to grab it by the pulley and orient it so the mounting “ears” where the bolts pass through are on top. Pull the alternator up and it WILL contact the edge of the intake manifold on the inboard side and the air conditioning tubes on the outboard side. BE GENTLE. Wiggle it back and forth, side to side and EASE it up. Some people say they had to grind off the casting ridge on the intake manifold but I didn’t find that necessary. It came out pretty easily. Did I mention being gentle?
Time for a beer, lunch, whatever, so take a break.
If you haven’t looked already, about now you’ll probably find that your new alternator does not have a pulley, so you’ll have to swap the old one over. If you have an air wrench this is not too bad, but be aware that the old one may have some corrosion on the shaft that will make it hard to remove. In that case, a puller is required and maybe an extra pair of hands. Since I’d gotten mine locally, I called the store and asked if they could swap it. They did (for free), but it did require a puller. Be careful not to damage the edges of the old pulley when pulling it off the alternator. Let me say that again: if you have to use a puller, be careful not to damage the edges of the old pulley when pulling it off the alternator. If you damage those edges it can affect the serp belt in a bad way. The old pulley went onto the new alternator easily and the air wrench torqued it down.
About now you’re thinking reassembly is the reverse. And it is. Almost. But if you simply put the alternator down into the hole, bolt the bracket in place you can find yourself unable to get the alternator into the bracket. So before you do all that and make yourself crazy it’s time to check things for fit.
The mounting “ears” on the alternator fit into the corresponding notches or spaces on the alternator bracket. But this can be a VERY tight fit--so tight that it can be exceptionally difficult to get the alternator into place once you have the bracket bolted in place. This probably varies with who remanufactured the alternator, but you need to be aware of it. On my car I got the bottom end in once--after a struggle--but it came out and would not go in again. So I pulled the bracket, the alternator, and filed a few thousandths of an inch off the outer sides of the upper and lower ears. The fit was still snug, but it would be much easier to get it all back together. Saabmedic says there are sleeves in the bracket than help clamp into the alternator and hold it in place. I didn't notice that, but seems reasonable. Maybe they were what made is so hard to get the alternator back in with the filing I did. Take a look at your bracket and decide what will work for you.
Now, assembly is the reverse of taking it apart. Ease the alternator into “the hole” and set it down at the bottom. Time to reinstall the alternator bracket. The bolts are steel going into aluminum so they don’t need to be very tight. Just good and snug. You do not want to strip out the threads.
Back down on the ground, grab the alternator and rotate, angle and get the bottom ears into the bracket. It pretty much only goes in one way and sort of self aligns so once you get it into place. Put one of the two alternator bolts in. You may have to wiggle the alternator so the threads on the inner end of the bolt catch the threads in the bracket, but this is not hard. I put some anti-seize on the bolt and threads but that’s probably not necessary. Don’t tighten this bolt yet--just get it mostly threaded in.
Go back up top and reach down into the hole and pivot the alternator up and into place in the upper notch in the bracket. You may need to use a little force to get the mounting ears properly seated. The holes in the bracket and alternator should all line up and you will be able to get the upper bolt into place. You need to get the bolt all the way through to the inner side of the bracket. This may just happen for you, but you might need to put pressure on the bolt head so it will go through the bolt hole and contact the threaded hole in the bracket. The thing here is that the threads on the bolt won’t engage the threads on the inner side of the bracket until the bolt head is at least flush with the edge of the hole in the outer side of the bracket. I used the end of a pry bar to push the bolt in until it was far enough in for the threads to catch when I turned the bolt with the 8mm Allen wrench. Tighten the top and bottom alternator bolts. Get them good and tight but don’t go crazy because you are again putting steel threads into aluminum.
So now the new alternator is in. From above or below, reconnect the large and small wires on the back of the alternator.
Put the belt tensioner back on. If you are putting on a new serp belt, route it carefully making sure it is centered on the pulleys.
Lower the engine most of the way back down. Reconnect the battery and start the engine. Make sure you aren’t getting any CELs and that the alternator/battery light is out. Check to make sure the serp belt is running smoothly over the pulleys. If all is well, shut down the engine.
Find the U-shaped engine brace and reattach using the four 16mm bolts and the one 18mm nut. It you undid the long skinny 10mm bolt put that one back, too.
Lower the engine the rest of the way back down.
Put the fender liners back in--which IMHO can be almost as much fun as getting the alternator in place, put the RF wheel back on and get the car off the jack stand.
Open another beer and enjoy it while you put your tools away. Then clean up and have another. Ya done good.
I think this covers it. If you find stuff wrong or missing or have other tips, click my name above to email me and I’ll update the post.
This job is definitely a PITA, but a decent DIY wrench should be able to do it. Be patient and it will go OK. And save you whatever 4 or so hours of labor at an indy would cost.
->Posting last edited on Mon, 14 Jul 2014 12:48:01.
1
, Sun, 19 Feb 2023 14:03:33
, Mon, 20 Feb 2023 06:12:26
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
