1996 Maxima: alternator weirdness
Re: 1996 Maxima: alternator weirdness
One decent choice on RockAuto is a Remy reman 125A for $107 after core.
Re: 1996 Maxima: alternator weirdness
I just did the job. It was unpleasant. Several of the issues I struggled with would have been a lot easier with a second person. But I'm irritated that it was this hard with just one person.
Basically the alternator is on top of the A/C compressor but below the thermostat. Use the radiator fans to get your bearings. Notice the manual serpentine adjuster. This car has one 6 rib serpentine which does the alternator and A/C. It also has a 4 rib just for the power steering. Both manually adjusted. I did not remove the fans or the radiator hose/thermostat. Here it is from the bottom. I loosened the idler pulley and backed off the adjuster to pull the belt. What the FSM says to do next is remove the A/C compressor bolts and push it forward to get it out of the way. The alternator really has to come down out of the bottom unless I was to remove a bunch of stuff. So I first loosened then removed all 4 A/C bolts. The alternator is fastened with only 2 bolts. Both actually come from behind as there is no room to insert a bolt between the face of the pulley and the unibody frame. The upper bolt is short and threads into the alternator housing. The lower bolt is long and threads into this nut adapter thing, which was annoying as hell to reassemble. Here is the lower bolt. I had to pull the A/C compressor forward to get to it but it was still kind of buried. Backing off the A/C compressor bolts was a bit of a PITA as well. But I got that done, moved the A/C compressor and then proceeded to struggle in removing the alternator. I fought with it quite a bit removing it from the car (between the A/C compressor and frame of the car, plus the radiator hose). Here's the old alternator. It was an OEM unit, and probably original to the car. Took me like an hour and 45 minutes to get to this point. Here is the "space" where the alternator lives. Installing the new one was actually harder and where I really needed a second set of hands. I ended up getting the upper bolt started (not that easy) then worked on aligning it for the lower bolt and that stupid nut. The new alternator came with a note that Nissan never used the third pin on the harness (which has room for 4). I believe that is for the warning light on the dash (which this car doesn't have). Maybe they never built any of the 4th gens with warning lights. The FSM shows a third wire. Weird. Here's the new alternator installed. Testing with headlights, fog lights, HVAC fan at max and rear defroster. Seems to work properly. No more funny noise or smell. I also replaced the 6 rib serpentine belt while I was in there though the old CARQUEST belt actually looked fine. I also have no idea how tight the manual tensioner should be so I made it kind of medium tight. We'll see if I get any belt slippage and if so I'll give it a bit more. Better to be a little too loose than a little too tight.
All said and done I think this was like a 3.5 hour job. It was about as bad as I expected it to be.
Basically the alternator is on top of the A/C compressor but below the thermostat. Use the radiator fans to get your bearings. Notice the manual serpentine adjuster. This car has one 6 rib serpentine which does the alternator and A/C. It also has a 4 rib just for the power steering. Both manually adjusted. I did not remove the fans or the radiator hose/thermostat. Here it is from the bottom. I loosened the idler pulley and backed off the adjuster to pull the belt. What the FSM says to do next is remove the A/C compressor bolts and push it forward to get it out of the way. The alternator really has to come down out of the bottom unless I was to remove a bunch of stuff. So I first loosened then removed all 4 A/C bolts. The alternator is fastened with only 2 bolts. Both actually come from behind as there is no room to insert a bolt between the face of the pulley and the unibody frame. The upper bolt is short and threads into the alternator housing. The lower bolt is long and threads into this nut adapter thing, which was annoying as hell to reassemble. Here is the lower bolt. I had to pull the A/C compressor forward to get to it but it was still kind of buried. Backing off the A/C compressor bolts was a bit of a PITA as well. But I got that done, moved the A/C compressor and then proceeded to struggle in removing the alternator. I fought with it quite a bit removing it from the car (between the A/C compressor and frame of the car, plus the radiator hose). Here's the old alternator. It was an OEM unit, and probably original to the car. Took me like an hour and 45 minutes to get to this point. Here is the "space" where the alternator lives. Installing the new one was actually harder and where I really needed a second set of hands. I ended up getting the upper bolt started (not that easy) then worked on aligning it for the lower bolt and that stupid nut. The new alternator came with a note that Nissan never used the third pin on the harness (which has room for 4). I believe that is for the warning light on the dash (which this car doesn't have). Maybe they never built any of the 4th gens with warning lights. The FSM shows a third wire. Weird. Here's the new alternator installed. Testing with headlights, fog lights, HVAC fan at max and rear defroster. Seems to work properly. No more funny noise or smell. I also replaced the 6 rib serpentine belt while I was in there though the old CARQUEST belt actually looked fine. I also have no idea how tight the manual tensioner should be so I made it kind of medium tight. We'll see if I get any belt slippage and if so I'll give it a bit more. Better to be a little too loose than a little too tight.
All said and done I think this was like a 3.5 hour job. It was about as bad as I expected it to be.
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Re: 1996 Maxima: alternator weirdness
You're working on the wrong Japanese car. The alternator in the Lexus takes about 15 minutes to do. Then another 4 weeks to do the timing belt.kevm14 wrote:It was unpleasant.
Re: 1996 Maxima: alternator weirdness
Longitudinal accessories are usually easier. While an alternator in the Malibu probably IS easier, it's probably still annoying and not a 20 minute job.