Well, after three hours I am back with the original alt and am now the proud owner of a worthless piece of ****. I like to think of it as a expensive bookend. The oe installed bolts took forever to loosen, even with a breaker bar and finally my impact wrench (for the 3 easy to get to w/ a few socket elbows). Once loosened, I was thinking that nothing at that point could go wrong, well it did. Once I got the new chrome alt in place, I began to tighten the 4 bolts that hold it in place. I tightened them all equally in order because I did not want to put any undue stress on any one bolt as I was re-tightening. I then got to the last turn of the top bolt (the easiest one to access on top) and the case cracked off exposing the whole side of the bolt/threads. It broke into 2 pieces. ....after all of that, it was very depressing. So I guess the only alternative is to search out a new case, have it chromed and shelve it until I either feel ambitious or can find someone else to do the install. Oh, the only disadvantage now is that I can not get the belt back on. I am going to have to wait 'til this weekend so I can get under the car to turn the tensioner and have my father help get it back on and aligned from above. ...it's been a looong evening.

 

Sorry you had problems. Releasing the tensioner is not hard at all (I guess you have heard that before ).

 

You should be able to get the belt on with the car on the ground and without any help. I route the belt and then squeeze under the car (tight yes, but doable) and put the belt over the tensioner. Probably have removed and replaced the belt upwards of 40 times in the past year and 20 in the past month or so and it seems like I have my alternator off every week to get at something else. Sorry you had so much trouble with the alternator though.