And- once you have the alternator out- you need to get that pulley nut off. (Pic below) Other posts had said to call a "friendly neighborhood shop" and ask them to remove it for you. When I did that- the guy who answered the phone laughed, and then he hung up on me. When I called the "friendly" local auto parts store the guy who answered responded "You want us to what?" which was followed by "Um, we don't do that, you'll probably need to take it to a shop," like the one where the guy hung up on me- right... The next one said to use an impact wrench and a big bench vise. I didn't have a vice, and besides- that could damage the pulley.. I suppose if you regularly use an independent shop and have a good working relationship with them, they might help you out and remove the pully for you if you tell them you are trying to do this job in order to impress your wife/girlfriend/partner/neighbor/mistress or your neighbor's mistress. No luck on that here however, something about liability and etc. So you'll probably have to try and do it yourself like me.

So here's the thing- the pulley is set up to use some some special, expensive, 39 tooth, inverted socket, dingleberry removal tool you don't have. You cannot, I repeat cannot, (read I could not) get this thing off with hand tools. I tried a pipe-clamp with blocks of wood and a breaker bar with a 22mm socket. No go. I tried a strap wrench with the same breaker bar-socket set up. No go. I tried a nitrile glove and an open-end box wrench- nope. I tried the glove with the strap wrench and the breaker bar. No. I even tried a towing strap with the pulley wrapped in the nitrile glove and the breaker bar- nope. And the big caution here is that you cannot distort the pulley or goof up the surface where the belt will run because it will chew up the belt. So you can't lock it in your neighbor's 2 foot long set of vice grips, even if you wanted to.

So- here's what finally worked: 2 nitrile gloves (inside out) wrapped around the pulley. A brembo box with a rotor in it filled the gap between the garage floor and the alternator pulley. A shop towel wrapped around the nitrile gloves, around the pulley. An 18" length of 2x2 laid across the pulley with my knee resting on it, and an impact wrench with socket. It took 3 tries but the third try- it finally broke loose and came off. I had to wail on it though...

And in case you're wondering counter clockwise to loosen here...

I learned that for this new alternator, with this old pulley- it was not possible to use the thick washer that was used on the old alternator. Because, the new alternator came with a new 24mm nut, and had to be torqued pretty hard. The contraption I used before didn't work, so I used 4 nitrile gloves and a shop towel and a big pipe wrench to keep it from spinning and was able to use the torque wrench.

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