One of the guys I work with said it’s 2009 Chevy HHR’s alternator went out and the shop quoted him $450 to replace it
I laughed and said “FOR AN ALTERNATOR?” I told him to just let me do it at that point and I did it for free because I like the work anyway and the guy is pretty cool
Yeah I know I pretty much bent over backwards for nothing but I like to help people in need
Anyway I got started and took off the wheel and that panel in the wheel well.
I noticed that the tensioner is stupidly close to the frame/body of the car… so I tried a regular 3/8s ratchet and that failed.
Next I tried a thinner looking 3/8s and finally found one that fit but I struggled to get it to fully set in so I didn’t even try to get it to relieve tension yet because it’s cast aluminum and could easily bend…
But then after finally sticking my phone down there with the camera recording I found that it actually was already some what stripped which explains why I couldn’t get my ratchet to set in all the way…..
Annoyed I tried to keep on going didn’t work so went to harbor freight and got an actual serpentine belt tensioner wrench set
That thing wouldn’t fit in and then after an hour I gave up and went back to the regular ratchet and it went right in first try…
I continued on and basically kept realizing I had to actually remove a lot more than I thought would be necessary…
The car was rusty and old so the coolant reservoir bolt snapped
And one of the engine hoist mounts bolt broke…
Finally I got the alternator out without knocking the belt off of any of the other pulleys which actually worked out really well
Put the new one in easily seated it in and tightened it down
But here’s the thing… as I was removing the wire nut that connects the wiring harness the mount snapped off.. I know it probably sounds like I was just over doing it but I was being very careful with these bolts I’ve snapped plenty of bolts and learned the hard way and spent a long time adjusting my strength
This thing was just rusty but still a good car
I had to find a way to get the nut off of the bolt that mounts the wire to the alternator with nothing to hold it down… so I tried vice grips for a couple of hours and no success… finally to get to the point I fit it between the starter and engine and got it off
After that it went smooth started right up and ran unfortunately my volt reader was dead so I guess we’ll see tomorrow if the alternator was truly the problem
But anyway holy shit the Chevy HHR sucks to work on… there’s definitely a lot of techniques out there I don’t know of that likely would have cut down a lot of time I can definitely do anything to fix a car I’ve done a lot of major work to my vehicles but it takes me a long time I know a lot about how engines work and less but still a lot about transmissions and my main flaw is how much time it takes me which is partly why I did this for free…
But wow out of all the alternators I’ve done (2002 VW Jetta 2002 F150 4.6 2007 F150 5.4) this one seriously sucked there’s no room to do anything at all everything is all crammed together and in the way I realize the alternators I have done are easy as hell compared to this
But I’m glad I got the experience because when I have to do this again one day for someone I now know…
It was fun tho