QuestionHello! My 3.5L 2005 Pacifica alternator is making a racket. We'll need to replace it. Is this an easy do it yourself? Concern is about removing, replacing the tension on the belt. Is there a special tool? Could you share the procedure so we can decide if it's something we can do ourselves? Thanks in advance!
AnswerHi Angela,
The alternator (generator) changeout on the 3.5L does not look too complex. It is more complex ont the 3.8L however.
To get to the belt tension release does require that you jack up the right front wheel so that the splash shield (which is designed to keep rain water from the wheel from splashing up on the belt) be removed, but that is straight forward.
The belt tensioner simply has a spring-loaded tab which is grasped by an open-end wrench and rotated to release the tension.
You do remove the engine 'cover' on the very top of it, but that is not difficult. The alternator has three bolts that secure it: one on the top is attached to a mounting bracket which you also remove along with the bolt, and then there are two lower bolts that look straight forward as shown in the manual. Wire removal is also straight forward and described.
So all in all it looks like an appropriate job for a do-it-yourselfer who has metric wrenches in the 10-17 mm range (as I estimate) and either a good sense of torque tensioning bolts or a torque wrench.
I can copy the pages from the CD manual that I have and attach those to an email which I will send to you directly. Send me a follow-up question telling me that email address as I don't routinely see the address of the questioner, but don't use the @ symbol, instead use 'at', otherwise the address is automatically erased.
Please 'rate' my answer (see the PS below).
Thanks,
Roland
