Alternator trouble

Tried to do the alternator on the Jaguar today, what a pain, took ages to get it off. To make matters worse, when I took the alternator to get an exchange unit, they told me there had been a problem with the alternators on these jags and they had been modified to resolve the problem! They didn't have an exchange unit which had been modified but are trying to get one. Luckily the customer isn't in a hurry.

Car designers - why make it so difficult?

This week has seen a variety of work, Morris 1000 engine blown piston, Nissan Bluebird starter and Jaguar Sovereign V12 shock absorber and alternator.

The Jag was the hardest, we had to replace a rear shock absorber, the lower mount was fine but to get the upper bolt was a nightmare. I am sure the people that design these things set out to make them as difficult as they can. However we eventually managed to get the top mounting bolt out and removed the shocker assembly. We then stripped out the spring with the indispensable spring compressors and changed over the new shock absorber. Then the difficult bit putting it back on the car, the top bolt was just as difficult to put back as it was to take out! Having got the top mounting located we had to tackle the bottom one. This wasn't too bad once we got the lower pivot bolt in place.

If you are wondering why only one shock absorber was replaced when normally we would always replace them in pairs, after discussions with the client it was felt that as the Jag has 4 shocks on the back and this was the only one that had just started to leak it was decided to just replace this one.

Ah well roll on tomorrow.