Hi. 1980 300CD with the alternator pivot bolt head busted off . Rusted to the bracket. So i proceed to junk yard, get new bracket and alternator of of car and come home to try to remove the whole thing. The bracket i speak of is the one bolted to the engine and the alternator and adjusting bracket are bolted to it.

So, the one pesky bolt tucked in behind the Harmonic balancer pulley and water pump housing I can not get to. At the junkyard I managed to get it out. I am not sure what was removed or what.

Can anyone help? I posted a while back and no one new a procedure. Here is a pic as seen from front of engine. It mounts on side of engine with 4 bolts and that one pigtail hole gets a bolt through the front of the engine. That is the bugger. .

thanks

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

I have this exact problem and would also appreciate any tips on how to get that pesky 5th bolt out.

These pics may help.
You don't need to rotate the engine, but you'll need to move the fan to fit a socket on that one bolt, it comes in from the back, I had to remove that other bracket to swap out an alternator.

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83 SD

84 CD

these pics help a lot. What do you mean about coming in from the back? I was assuming I'd find a nut in the front and some sort of stud sticking out from the back?

What is the other bracket you had to remove to get to it?

Part #239 is the bolt that comes in from the back, so, yes, the nut is in front, you can see that in the second pic too. I imagine they did this in case the bolt worked loose and fell out. I put a new bolt in from the front and double nutted it, it won't back out. On mine, that bolt was long enough it hit something so it wouldn't come out, necessitating removal of bracket #116.

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83 SD

84 CD

I probably wasn't clear before. My problem is exactly the same as yours was i.e. the bolt holding the alternator broke so I have to remove bracket 116. My question is how to do this i.e. where and how do I get to the 5th pesky little bolt under the harmonic balancer holding bracket 116.

It has been a very long time, but I think the harmonic balancer has a place where it is "cut out" on the back side and if you rotate the crankshaft to a position where the cut-out area is directly in front of the bolt head, you will have enough clearance to remove it. I am going from memory, but I think that is how I did it.

Okay, just behind the part that's in your way there is a cut out, you may be able to rotate the engine to get a wrench on it. If not, you'll need to remove the harmonic balancer.
The one I did was on a 240, no such issues.
Good luck.

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83 SD

84 CD

I had the EXACT same problem the OP and other guy had. I too went to the junkyard and grabbed another bracket and removed mine and did a swap.

There IS a cutout and I had to rotate the engine and thats now i got the 5th bolt out.

I actually degreased and polished my bracket before installing it and it looks brand new.

Oh I forgot to mention, mine is a 84 turbo, whereas yours is not a turbo, but I dont think it makes a difference, you should still have a cutout large enough to get that bolt out.

Mine is a turbo.

So what did you have to remove to get to the cutout on the balancer? I already took out the radiator. I'm guessing the fan needs to come out then I can get to the cutout?

I wouldn't think so, the fan should rotate independently, it's on a clutch.

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83 SD

84 CD

You do NOT need to remove the radiator, at least not for a w123/300d turbo. I did this job 2 times without removing the radiator.

The balancer has the cutout already. You just need to rotate it so the opening is in line with the alternator bolt. I used the power steering belt/pulley and a 22mm to rotate it (turn clockwise facing the engine). The fan did have to come off so I had room to work.

OK we got the job done.

Could be we didn't have to remove the radiator, but we had to do the oil cooler lines anyway, so that's OK.

We removed the fan and fan pully and rotated the engine to see the pigtail bolt from the balancer cutout. Pigtail.jpg shows that view.

That balancer was still massively in the way for our standard socket and breaker bar. To actually get a socket on the pigtail bolt, we used an electric grinder to grind a socket to be as shallow as we could get away with while still grabbing the bolt fully. That's socket-bar-to-remove-pigtail.jpg

We put the socket on the bolt but still couldn't get the breaker bar onto the socket. So, we grinded the breaker bar down: breaker-only.jpg

Finally we removed the pigtail bolt.

To slide the bracket off we still had to remove the turbo oil return metal tube from the turbo. That tube was blocking the bracket from sliding off the studs on the back.

We also had to remove a bracket attaching an AC cooler hose (I think that's what it was) to the oil pan: ac-hose-bracket-removal.jpg

Final result was bracket-removed.jpg

Installation was reverse of removal. :-)

-John

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Congrats!-Way to GO!

My pivot bolt was froze up on me too. I never busted the bolt head but I would of guessed I "would have" eventually. I was having night mares doing what U had to do.
I even located the large bracket but never needed it nor purchased it. Phewwww!

There is a link to my posting on this site.

I contribute it to pure luck on my part since over 3 mechanics could not get it lose for the PO. I learned this after I got the car. It was a hidden secret for me when I got the car but PO later told me about it. Don't you love secrets!

Once, after I got the care, I watched a fellow with a torch battle it for an hour until he gave up and said he would not continue to work on it!

This left me on my own.

Turns out the pivot long-bolt was installed cock-eyed prior due to the "bracketing" being slightly off when a replacement alterntor was installed. I had to add washer slims here and there, do some light grinding on the alternator casting, to get it all where the bolt would go in straight in like an arrow!! This is very important. Lots of anti-seeze helps too!

I guess the story here is if you are intalling a replacement alternator, like we all do, make sure U "hand fit" it and make sure everything is in PERFECT alignment or this pivot bolt may get cock-eyed FROZEN on the next guy-"ME". The castings of the alterntor I guess vary slightly but look perfect to the eye.

As I remember it was about a 1/16" cock-eyed. Just enough for the mechanic to power air-impact a bolt in! A few of the threads were damaged but not many. Again I totally lucked out.

I spent no less than 10 hours just getting the bolt lose, tiny fractions of an inch at a time. Back and forth for what seemed a Century!

Don't U hate shootie shop work!???

Get this: When I called the PO he told me yeah he knew it was frozen in place and his mechanic said he rebuilt it in place, lol. So funnie, yeah he changed the voltage regulator, but impossible to do the bearings. But U can do this mounted !

Anyway, now that mine is fixxed I can change the alternator at any time I want.

Imagine getting stuck on a trip and losing use of the car totally for weeks because you were unable to pull out a dumb alternator!

You'd get hammered with a humongous bill also.

If I sold a car with a problem like this I'd have to tell the new owner. But now it's fixxed so it's good to go to a new owner eventually.

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1982 300SD