Need4Camaro

iTrader: (1)

Well, ontop of my radiator leak it appears my car decided to disable itself. I was driving home and the voltage meter very slowly crawled into the red zone, as in it took about an hour (but I was about an hour and a half away from home) before it finally quit. I was trying to make it back but I got stranded till 2 AM waiting for a tow truck.

I dont know which went first, the alternator or the battery. My battery is less than a year old and is an Optima Redtop, my alternator is even newer. Both are under warranty so Im not very shaken up just inconvenienced but I am alittle concerned as to why one or the other went prematurely.. I am thinking my alternator slowly let go and took my battery with it...

Now the issue. The shop that replaced my power steering rack removed my alternator to do it (and damaged some wiring aswell in process). I cant even budge the 13 mm bolt that sits behind the alternator right under the spark plug wire.. With a regular ratchet wrench I cant get enough leverage, with a 13 mm wrench I cant get enough force, with a breaker bar I cant get enough space... Does anyone else have problems with that bolt?

wssix99

iTrader: (5)

The bolts here are a PITA to get to and sometime hard to get leverage on. In the past, I've had to remove the entire bracket with the alternator just to get some of the bolts out.


The alternator. If the battery went bad first, the car would leave you stranded so you couldn't start the thing. With a good alternator, your current battery may start up.


What makes you think the battery is bad? Have you tried charging or reconditioning it?


A very common thing here is that people unbolt the alternator, leaving the exciter wire on because the connector is hard to get to. One little slip and the alternator will drip and rip that fragile wire from the connector, or snap it in half. Do you know if that is what happened? If they didn't repair that exciter wire and it came apart while you were driving, that could have caused your under voltage. A simple test of your alternator should confirm if its really bad or not.

Need4Camaro

iTrader: (1)

Do you have a good way of getting that 13mm bolt out the back of the alternator? Even with the bracket bolts detached that single bolt still holds the entire assembly intact... Or is the bolt on the back attached to the bracket?

Well it turns out the battery survived. Thankfully. I was originally under the assumption it was bad because when AAA came out they put it on a tester and they determined it had a dead cell. Before warrantying it I did some research on Optimal Batteries here on LS1 tech and found that they can be recovered using special charging techniques or a AGM Smart Charger so I had it recharged and it came back from 9 volts to 12.8 volts. Pretty impressed.


Yea they broke my exciter wire and didn't want to own up to it and let me drive off the lot like that causing about $1,000 worth of damage and some interior pieces literally caught fire. I found out when it was taken to a shop to estimate the damages which my insurance mostly covered but you have no idea how bad I want to sue that shop for the deductible.

Meanwhile the exciter wire was repaired with a new connector using a butts connector but I'm probably going to go in and solder / shrink wrap that wire when I get in there for piece of mind. I'm not sure yet if that's the cause of the problem but I will find out as soon as I can get the alternator out. Oh yes... My Power Steering pump is also leaking fluid slowly on top of it so for piece of mind I'm also replacing the pump with a turn one pump and pulley as I've heard that the ones at your normal auto stores whine a lot.

wssix99

iTrader: (5)

It's been a while since I worked on that, but recall that most of my problems with that particular bolt were due to me turning it in the wrong direction.


I ran my red top all the way down this winter and it bounced back, just-like-new, after giving it a night on the AGM charger. Pretty nice.


Lovely. How recent was this? Maybe your latest issue is related?


I had TurnOne rebuild my original pump with stock valving (instead of their performance version) and have been really happy with it. Their pulley is great and I don't have to worry about anyone's junk parts on my car!

Need4Camaro

iTrader: (1)

The exciter wire was broken in mid November and repaired late November.

How hard is it to remove the power steering pump and reinstall it? Ive never touched one before. Is it something your average joe can do or is it easy to screw up? I dont really want to trust a shop to an after market part. I know you need a pulley puller. How difficult is it to get the pulley lined back up?

It looks like the PS hoses also screw into the rack, is this correct? I wanted to replace the hoses while I was there.

wssix99

iTrader: (5)

If you want to remove the pump so you can get to the alternator more easily, you can do that. The pulley is easy to get off if you have the right puller. It's just a friction fit so putting it back on is easy. You also don't need to disconnect the hoses. Leaving them attached, you can move the pump out of the way just a little bit.

You could replace the hoses, but my experience has been that it's best to wait until you have a problem with the system to do that - or if they get a problematic leak. Working with the P/S system always makes a god awful mess..