Rep Power: 118

So yesterday I finally was motivated enough to replace the alternator / ps belts on my 2003 Civic. My son, who has been driving the car for last two years, told me it was “making” noises when the AC turns on back during spring break and I couldn’t remember buying new belts when I swapped the engine out the year before.

Generally I like to remove things to get better access to what I need to work on, so the first thing I start to remove is the power steering pump. Of course as soon as I get the bottom nut off, it falls and makes that classic thud sound as it gets stuck somewhere in the undershield. My son goes under to find it and comes up with a long bolt with a wingnut welded to the end and says this was down there too.

I recognized it immediately as the alternator tension bolt, but I have no clue how it would have been able to unscrew itself and fall out. Ended up having to remove the lower bolt so I could rotate the alternator upwards enough to get things to align right so I could spin it back in.

Forget just how much (not fun) it is to put actual Honda belts on, I was just about remove the lower bracket bolt again when we finally got it over the pulley using wood walking stick and a large c-clamp to stretch it over.

To prevent the bolt from coming out again, the only thing I was able to think of was to use a medium length zip-tie around the threads.

I figure that should prevent the bolt from spinning out on its own in the future.

 
Rep Power: 222

wow, go buy a lottery ticket, lucky it didn't fry the computer

 
Rep Power: 133

Someone work on the alternator recently and not replace the adjustment bolt?

 
Rep Power: 118

I would think the odds of my son tinkering and/or paying for someone to work on the car are 0. Love him, but he wanted “guidance” to scrap off the inspection sticker..

Being that I installed the engine back in and adjusted the belts 17 months ago, I would definitely have to accept the “fact” that Gremlins got into the engine bay at some point.

 
Rep Power: 243

Definitely lucky it didn’t fry anything!!!

Might be good to have him inspect it every so often.

 
Rep Power: 222