For several weeks before xmas there had been a funny rumbly-squeaky noise from under the bonnet, the sort of thing that might have you thinking the water pump was going (van has done 93K). At first it was intermittent but it ended up constant, didn't seem to get louder with revs so I thought I'd wait and see what broke
Eventually I decided it could be the alternator belt slipping; the reasoning for this wa that the noise would get worse if you put the lights on just after starting - obviously the alternator is having to work harder to charge the battery and run the lamps so you get electromagnetic drag and the belt slips... except that the belt was fine. Bu99er. Maybe the alternator bearings then...Before I had chance to fiddle with it, the charge warning light started coming on. It'd go off when you start the engine, then 25 seconds or so later it would come back on. If you put the clutch down, switched engine off and back on again then let clutch up, the light would go off as the engine restarted then come back on 25 seconds later... and so on. I gather the light isn't actually fed from the alternator these days but some bloody ECU...
A quick check with a voltmeter showed that the battery wasn't charging. There was a decent connection to the alternator post and the earth bond was good too. So that'll be a dead alternator then, I guess.
I peered down past the intercooler and there it was. Pah, I thought, 10 minute job to get that out! Well, 10 minutes to get the corroded intercooler bolts out, maybe.
Off with the wires (don't try this at home kiddies but I taped up the battery lead rather than disconnect at the battery end, that way I don't lose the radio code and the central locking doesn't play billy suggers), crack the two long bolts and... hmmm, how does this rubber drive coupling work then? Three bolts round the hub, maybe the alternator just wiggles out once all the bolts are out. Well, I wiggled, pulled, tugged, yanked and heaved (but enough about my sex life
) and with the aid of Hands Like A Paedophile (tm) and a crowbar I eventually had the alternator out.I realised that because of the way the drive coupling is fitted, and you don't need to take any belts off, there's no reason why you can't still drive the van as long as the battery os good! So I plugged the charger in for a few hours and have been running around like the proverbial fly with a coloured bottom trying to get a replacement alternator ever since.
Ford want £341 + VAT for a new one; the auto electricians don't seem to want to touch it (probably just needs a new regulator or brushes, bloody pennies except that the whole thing is encapsulated on this). One sparky did spin me a yarn about 'the rotors go on these mate' which may or may not be true but he quoted me £120, wasn't sure that would actually fix it and refused to guarantee his work. Thanks, but no thanks.
Some motor factors tell me that they can't get one for the TDCi engine, only the TDDi. I finally found a place who said 'Yeah, no worries, it'll be here at 12 o'clock' only for it to have the wrong pulley on when I got there. It appears otherwise identical so maybe that's the TDDi version. Either away they weren't happy for me to swap the pulleys so it got sent back and (maybe) the right one wil appear on Monday. Then I'll need my mate Gary Glitter to give me a hand putting the barsteward back in again...
Bloody ridiculous. When the old Lucas alternator on my '87 TVR wore its brushes out last year I had a new brushbox/ regulator fitted with the unit still on the car, in half an hour, cost £12. It used to be the case that a single alternator (or balljoint, track rod end, wheel bearing, brake pad) fit half the cars on the road; why the hell do they need to make so many ever-so-slightly-different ones to fit every different model? Twunts.
(i am blonde 
) whats the problem here??
I'm guessing the original alternator probably wasn't faulty after all.
