At 111000 m and a pending trip across france I thought time for a new alternator .(Already done the starter)
The youtube lot say you can do it from the top and yes doing it again I probably could. So I took off the belt and air box and eventually had to jack it up to remove the air duct an oil filter to get access. As usual the bolts were a pig but the small 90 deg air wrench worked great and I got the bolts out and it came up easily after putting in a crowbar to eject it from the bracket.
Now when you re fitting the alternator the sliding sleeve on the bracket will not move . As its an aluminium bracket just putting a bolt through would crack it so at one end the fixing slides.
Now that pig of a sliding tube would not move so I constructed a threaded assembly to pull it back. Just a socket and a suitable length bolt. Worked a treat but boy was that sleeve tight.

 

Do you think all cars will have the same difficulty during re-assembly. Or is that a hit or miss occurrence ?

Z

 

From what I have read by numerous youtube posters its a problem. All lucas alternators ACR 15/16/18 etc had a sleeve in the rear mounting and this is carried over to the U shaped bracket to allow for engineering tolerances which would squeeze and crack the bracket.
If its not pushed back you have great difficulty getting the alternator in and unless you can move the alternator easily you cannot align the bolt....Its only a socket and bolt to resolve the problem .....PS I had to use a 3 ft pri bar to get the alternator out.

 

The 4.2 cars' alternators apparently do not suffer from this issue. Removing it and reinstalling it after refurbishment during the summer of 2018 was relatively easy from underneath the car, and there was no sleeve involved. I made the job easier by draining the engine oil and removing the oil filter - that created much more tool space and alternator wiggle room....

 

I replaced mine from the top a few months back. I removed the air box and bracket for clearance. The fit of the alternator on its bracket was tight, but nothing a basic pry bar couldn't overcome with minimum pressure. The new unit fit was just right it seemed. Same as Jon89, pretty easy job on a 4.2l engine.

 

If the dimensions of the mounting foot on the replacement alternator are identical or smaller than the original of course you will have no problem. This is not always the case. 10 thou will make it impossible to fit without moving the sleeve.

 

I agree, I ran into the exact problem with my 08 xk150, bit I ground off 5 thous...to make it fit.
Wj