I am going to replace the alternator, is there anything I should know/ be careful of?

im concerned about the Belts and putting them back on...

 

First, disconnect the negative battery cable before touching anything else.

There is only one belt on these Blazers (serpentine belt) that drives all of the engine pulleys. The belt is a bit of a pain in the neck to put back on the pulleys because of how little space there is between the engine and radiator, but it's manageable without scraping your knuckles. You should have a belt routing diagram on a sticker, located at the front of the engine compartment when you open the hood. Route the belt as shown on that sticker. Be careful to make sure that the belt is properly seated in the grooves of the cranshaft and power steering pulleys....they're the two lowermost ones on the engine, and the hardest to see when installing the belt.

To relieve belt tension, you will need a pry bar with a 3/8" drive. There is a square 3/8" drive hole in the tensioner arm to attach the pry bar to.

When reinstalling the belt, sometimes it is easiest to install the belt onto the alternator pulley last, rather than the tensioner pulley. That's been my experience.

Other than that, the rest of the job is pretty self-explanatory in terms of connections and mounting hardware.

Good luck!

 

sounds supper easy, thanks for the info! i will letcha know how it goes

 

Unless its been done in the last few years, personally, I would replace the serpentine belt while you are at it. Cost is around $30.00 or less, if I recall correctly.

 

Yes, good input. There are some economy belts out there for closer to $20, but I recommend that you steer clear of those. They are lower quality and can create more noise (like squeaking, squealing, or chirping). They also don't last as long as a good $30 belt (most times, anyway).

 

I was planning on that as well, I dont skimp on my parts, I dont get cheap gas and I dont get cheap parts thanks guys should be fun!

 

good. then you'll want to get a Gates belt. used their product for years on all of my vehicles, never had any issues with them.


and a little FYI Bre........when you go to drop the belt (if you haven't already done this (i know you're kinda busy with JTally @ the moment) but when you do pull on that tensioner, make sure your j-bar is a ittle higher than you would normally think to put it.

'cause when you drop the bar back down, you no longer have the belt stopping the pully & tensioner, and it goes down about another 3" or so, usually causing the bar to get wedged against the engine.

or you could just do it with a single wrench like i do. then you have no worries about the damn bar jamming you up.

GL with it.

 

yes I read the thingy about the gates belt on another post...thats what I was gonna do, thanks for the heads up, as of course all this is first time every thing for me the more info the better, that injector had me in tears at one point, LOL especially when I figured out I put the 1 and 3 poppets in the wrong place and had to change them...luckly my hands were small enough to squeeze into the top of the upper man without taking it off a second time heehee I hate those fuel lines too!


ear muffs for the blazer...shes a testy one!