Hello to all that stumble by my thread. I have replaced the alternator on my '04 Jag X-type, and now I'm looking at two minor problems. First one; the long bolt above the alternator has less than an inch left to bolt all the way in, and I've been turning, and turning! I've also removed it, sprayed some lubricant, and re bolt with help of mum, and still turning..any suggestions? My other problem is how do I re tension the belt? I thought by removing the breaker bar from atop of the tensioner pulley square insert will tension the belt back. Nope! Thanks to those for your responses.

 

Jose, from the sounds of things, you may need to loosen up the alternator slightly to allow the final bolt to get properly aligned. sounds like you are on the edge of getting it to start, but it needs that fraction of an inch to truely engage.

As for the belt, if you have the belt correctly orientated, you should be able to release the tensioner, slide the belt into place and then release to get the proper tension on the belt. What I have experienced is if you don't get the belt down into the grooves of all the pulleys, it will make it appear like the belt is too short and makes it a real pain to get the belt on again.

 

Thermo. Thanks for your reply, man. I had loosened the bottom bolt of the alternator enough to give the alternator a bit of a slack, and still I keep turning. Maybe an electric wrench could do the job, eh? And as for the serpentine belt i have the diagram, plus pictures I took before, and after inserting the breaker bar to loosen the tension. I don't have a clue as to how i can set the tension back.

 

Jose, while I don't recall how the tensioner works on the X-Type, most are simply a spring that pushes the wheel against the belt. So, you use the breaker bar to move the pulley, you slide the belt on to the last component and then you release the breaker bar and the tensioner should move towards the belt, applying the necessary tension.

 

Spring loaded, ey. Could it be that the spring on the pulley tensioner has gone bad? Geez! If it ain't one thing it's another..

 

Jose, just for my own peace of mind, I checked the service manual and the belt tensioner is a spring loaded device. When you put the breaker bar on it, you should feel an initial amount of tension and then as you move the bar more, you should continue to feel tension (possibly increasing just a little bit the further you move it). If you are not feeling the tension, then this would confirm a bad tensioner and possibly why you were having alternator issues (ie, the drive belt was slipping on the alternator pulley.

As for your bolt issue, unless you have the wrong alternator, keeping the bolts loose should allow you to move the alternator around enough to get all the bolts to line up and then allow you to tighten things.

 

Thermo, so that we are on the same page. I'm going to fill you in with the details. The first step I made was to loosen the tension on the belt by turning it counter clockwise. Towards the windshield. The motor is crossed FYI. Should have I loosen the top alternator bolt before loosening the tension? Then I removed the AC compressor. Keep in mind that I had the breaker bar still inserted on the pulley while doing this task. Removed the alternator, and took it to a near by repair shop for the component mentioned in this. The specialist did confirm it was the alternator[from inside] . Matched it with one he had on the shelf. Of course we exchange info specifically for the make, model, and year to where this was going to get bolted. Reversed the procedure. There is still tension on the spring to the pulley as I move it counter clockwise. I'm thinking of going to a local auto store, and rent the special tool for this purpose. The tool is way thinner than the breaker bar. It will allow me to turn it my direction. How you may think? Well, there isn't sufficient room for the breaker to be inserted the opposite to bring the tension back on the belt. As for the bolt, I'm lost. Still thinking though, Thermo. That's all I can think of for this task that to me looked simple, and turned out to be a "now what did do, or didn't do." 😩🤔

 

If you are having issues with that one bolt, maybe you coud take the alternator out and try and see if the bolt would go in the hole by itself. I know that would be a pain, but at least you could confirm one way or the other that either the threads in the hole are bad or that the bolt spacing on that alternator is not correct. Short of that, not sure what else you can do at this point .

 

Thanks for jumping on this, Alfadude. I can try that, but like you said " it'll be a pain." I was told what I imagined what can be the issue here with the bolt. The thread on the bracket must've stripped. Though there are solutions to that. Thanks again.

 

Jose, the way you released the tension on the belt so you could take it off, is what you have to do when putting the belt back on. You will end up putting the belt on all the pulleys except for one, you will then use the tool to move the tensioner to put slack in the belt and hold the tool in this position. This will allow you to slide the belt on to the final pulley. From there, you release the tool on the tensioner and it should spring back to where the pulley is against the belt.

As for the bolt issue you have, I have to agree with Alfa that your best option is to pull the alternator back out, see if you can screw in the bolt then and see what you have at that point. I can't imagine them changing the size bolt that goes in that hole, but I have seen stranger things.

 

I've been removed and reinstalled the alternator quite several times, it's very tight to slot the alternator mount into the bracket by hand, I used the long jaw clamp from bottom alternator to the bracket and turn the clamp to slide the mounting ear into the bracket, keep turning the clamp till the bolt slide in, and keep "easy" turn the clamp till the bolt catch the tread of the hole, in your case you might have the mounting ear came in too far (just 1/16 of an inch is too far), so use a flat screw driver try to "easy" pride (put the screw driver in the slot between mounting ear and the bracket, tap, tap it out) while push and turn the bolt til the treads catch.

 

What up fellas!? Just dropped in to say thanks for all the suggestions. I solved my belt tensioner probs by inspecting the main drive belt, and replacing it. The new belt had more tension than the old one(obviously). The old one was worn, and stretched out. That there was why I couldn't get my tension back. As for the alternator bolt. Still having that less than an inch problem. But I'm still winding my gears as to why it won't bolt all the way in. Hmmm.🤔. Cheers!🍻.