My new hobby ( nonVW, long, but perhaps mildly entertaining?)

[roccit_53 at hotmail.com (C Boyko)]

WARNING: This message is long winded and contains the four letter word FORD. 
Sensitive viewers are cautioned.

Okay, in an attept to fill the gap in my life left by the fact that I have 
now found all the Cabby parts I need (one door, three fenders and four 
flares later), I decided to embark on a new hobby. No actually my son 
decided we needed to embark on it together. He informed me of this in a 
"Mother-Son" type phone call, during which my hubby began to laugh and chant 
"Jerry, Jerry", yep it was like white trash on the Springer show, but 
without the bleeping (we tend to include the swearing here in Canada 
anyways). He wanted my truck this weekend. Not a problem except:
-it has no plates or insurance
-it has not been driven since the fall, when the high school shop did 
suspension, slave cylinder and MC replace/refurbish (which involved the 
tranny being off four times), all the fluids known to mankind, and a bunch 
of other shit : READ: something's gonna grenade and it's likely best not to 
drive it 5 hours straight to figure out what (my kid lives in North Bay)
- it needs an E test
-THIS is the main one: it has a five minute driving range before it drains 
the battery and pukes on the side of the road. To get to North Bay, he'd 
need, well, about 60 charged batteries on board.

SO we get to a compromise and decide to figure out what's up with the 
charging system this weekend.

Friday 7:30 pm - I'm finally home from that working thing I do, and the near 
daily Cabby "body shop visitation", and have had supper, and was heading for 
the Wind Tunnel, wrench in hand when the POS Jetta rolls in. Yep, my 
firstborn son is home. No hugs, just right to the task at hand, remove the 
alternator and get it in for a test before stuff closes at 9 pm. One 
tensioner and two bolts stand in the way of that goal. A quick test reveals 
that the voltage at the battery terminals actually drops when the alternator 
is running, and it's original to the truck, which is a 1988 F150, with the 
big straight six.

Friday 7:30ish: I let the kid have at it, serving as beer and tool fetcher, 
and I had some piddly jobs to do on Klaus who has spent the winter in the 
shadow of the truck. Adam  doesn't bother with the "heat/chemicals/money" 
part of the equation and proceeds directly to "force", followed by snap, 
then,  $%@(*%$^#  %#^$# ^$^$^!!!!!! or something to that effect. Bolt #2 
gets the ever popular MAPS/O2 torch used on it and cracks fairly well, but 
to back up the horse, Ford really attaches their alternators for life, there 
is this, like, five pound bracket bolted to the block which embraces the 
alternator in a loving grasp, and the hardened 5" bolts that hold it on go 
though it twice, once on each end. Sort of like our PS pumps. That snapped 
bolt still retains it on both ends, one of which is threaded. READ: it ain't 
goin' anywhere.

A few minutes later, he's up unbolting the bracket, 6 bolts later, at about 
9:05, it's off. He heads out for partying, and I go back to swearing at 
Sciroccos.

Saturday, 8 am: The kid is still sleeping (it off) and I head to Timmy's for 
a coffee, and then to Canadian Tire, alternator still attached to the 
bracket, and the questionable battery in tow. Big shock, both are toast. 
Load them in the cart. Find some of the (GASP!) SAE tools I don't own, 
another tank of O2, add them in, grab an alternator off the shelf as an 
insurance one, and add in a nice honking new 5" bench vise they had on sale, 
and since the coolant temp sensor somehow got mangled, I figure I'd get one 
of those. Stupid me, they asked me if it was this or that (fill in mumbles 
here)  - one was $7, the other $30, well, no need to even look at them, it's 
the $30 one. Strange how things NEAR the alternator got damaged. By this 
time I'm thinking the traditional caster model ( ie : shopping cat) could 
use a better suspension, understeer is not the word. Load that in the car, 
and off to UAP (like NAPA) to do a little price shopping, oh, no, first to 
the local yard where I score a nice Interstate Battery for $25. Bonus. UAP 
has a cheaper alternator, so I grab it, now I have three in the car. THIS is 
the diofference between domestics and VWs in Dunnville. Notice how it is a 
case of "which store has one on the shelf for lkess money?" none of this 
drive an hour/its wrong/ it'll be a week crap. And the nice guy at UAP is 
trying to piss of another idiot customer (his word), so tries a variety of 
bolt extractor sockets on the snapped bolt instead of waiting on him. Nope. 
We're into heat and grinding land.

10:30 Saturday: Back home, load the wheelbarrow with the goods for a photo 
shoot, and wheel it over to the truck. The kid has risen somewhat from his 
comatose state. I proceed to attack the bolt with a vengeance, heat to 
red/vicegrips method is going nowhere, so I decide to dissassemble the 
alternator housing to facilitate grinding. Three little bolts, snap , snap 
snap. Perfect. Now just slide out the guts. Or not. Nope, they won't move, 
hammer hammer, still no movement. The housing won't even move.

SO I get out the little grinder (Dremel), and mess with it, but it's not 
gonna work. SO I start drilling out the bolt. At which point Adam comes out 
and digs out his bolt extractor, pounds it in the hole, them realises it's 
in the wrong end. Drill a hole in the other end (oh, and in case you're 
wondering, the whole area is now bathed in various penetrating fluids, so 
chemistry has been applied too, but to no avail) Tap the sucker in and 
twist. That beautiful noise, "SNAP" Did the bolt move, you might ask? Well, 
no, the bolt extractor snapped actually. SO now there is a hardened tool in 
the hardened bolt. Perhaps even expanding the bolt's diameter slightly.

Hammer time, it's clear there is no core fee coming from this alternator, so 
it gets a bit further demolished, to give enough clearance for the big 
grinder. Which actually just cut enough to allow clearance for the little 
grinder to cut the rest of the way through both housing and bolt. But there 
is enough depth of busted bolt/blt extractor wedged in the bracket that it 
still won't move. ( It won't go at an angle) Now a light begins to shine. 
The threaded end in the other end WILL move,(a friggin damn miracle, that) 
and it threads right out allowing us to finally drift the offender out and 
free the bracket. It's Miller time. (Or something much better)


Now we still don't have the replacement bolt, nobody in town had one long 
enough, so off to my brother's. A bit of time wasted viewing his newly 
acquired collection of Dodge Shadows, don't ask, but there are three of 
them. And he had the bolt...


Yep, by about 5 pm that baby was charging at 14.9V and all was well. Until 
we run it and it spews coolant out of the temp sensor...


ANd how much labour for that alternator to be replaced? Well, lessee, that's 
two poeple, for 10 hours each...better just leave me the keys.


Cathy.

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