A:USE CRAPPY TOOLS THAT'S HOW!

Everything was running smoothly, cruising along smelling like onion rings and tempura 1 week into having my car converted to run on WVO with a Frybrid sytem, and all of a sudden, my 2 week old battery from AZ died.

Back to AZ to have them check the starting and charging system. Find out that the alternator, like my wife, ain't puttin' out.

Back home and order new 70 Amp reman Bosch for $165.
Wait a week for it to arrive--comes Thursday.

Friday

Get home from work
Change clothes, eat dinner, then out to replace alternator.

Car up on ramps--no problem
Disconnect battery and remove--no problem
Belt tensioner and belt removal-- no problem

Top bolt alternator--14mm socket too small--don't see a Craftsman 15mm in tool drawer--I figure socket set I bought must have only gone up to 14mm

Rummage around box wrenches--AHAA!--15mm--my luck is good!
Take over to car, it's a little loose on bolt head, but it grips and turns, and out comes bolt.

Bottom bolt alternator--HUGE PROBLEM

15mm box wrench way too big--14mm box wrench too small--WTF?
Proceed with crescent wrench--waste of time as always--keeps slipping/rounding bolt head.

Go for can of PB--Empty
Get in car and beat feetto get to Ace before they close--out on shelf.

Now it's too late for Wally World or Home Cheapo they'll be closed by the time I could get there--now really pissed.

Go home and bang on bolt head(with small 5lb sledgehammer not head) and try crescent wrench again--more rounding, more slipping.

Getting dark--call it a night.

Saturday

Up at 7AM and off to Wally World for a propane torch and PB.
Get back and run torch 25 minutes and use vise grips--no movement--pretty vise grip teeth marks left in bolt head however.

Next up--Power PLaster
Soaked in PB AND I MEAN SOAKED! for about an hour.

Brought back 5lb sledgehammer and knocked the hell out of the headbolt and receiving end of alternator bracket. Put vise grips back on to what little was left to grab onto and 15 minutes and five arm cramps later it finally broke free.

Great, now all I have to do is to remove the pulley and put it on the new alternator and I'm in business right? You guessed it, the S.O.B wasn't coming off for anything.

Take alternator, jump in truck and race like hell to the Chevy dealer who's closing in 5 minutes and see if someone can break it free with an impact wrench.

Get to dealership and last mechanic is putting down overhead door--slide under as door is closing and explain plight--guy has pity on me and takes alternator to his work area. Breaks it free in 10 seconds.

I ask how much and he says nothing--I flip him $5 and tell him to have a beer on me, but that I'm telling everyone I loosened it for him.

Back in truck, off to NAPA to get two new bolts for alternator. $3 and 10 minutes later I'm back at home with maybe 15 minutes work left.(HA!)



FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER I FINALLY GET THE BOLTS TO CATCH!

Belt lined up, tensioner back together, alternator plugged in, battery installed and hooked up, start it up and off ramps.

Start to put tools away and as I'm putting away sockets, I notice a 15mm socket staring back at me from the back of the drawer. What possessed me to take that socket and put it on the head of the original alternator top bolt that was lying on the garage floor, I'll never know, but I did, and you guessed it, a perfect fit!

I went to the tool drawer with the box wrenches and grabbed the 15mm and examined it, only to see the word CHINA stamped on the back!

Come to find out my Craftsman box wrench set only went up to 14mm and at some point in my youth I had acquired a cheap metric box wrench set that went up to 24mm. Apparently I must have thought when I got the Craftsman wrenches it would be a good idea to throw the larger cheapo wrenches into the tool drawer to "cover" the wrench sizes I didn't have in the Craftsman line.

Well today, I threw them in a different direction.

13 wasted hours, a new propane torch, 2 new alternator bolts and a can of PB--all thanks to a cheap 15mm box wrench which wasn't 15mm.

A word of unsolicited advice to anyone who learns vicariously from the mistakes of others:

BUY AND KEEP ONLY QUALITY TOOLS--THROW EVERYTHING ELSE OUT!

__________________
1986 300SDL
1988 Monte Carlo SS
2002 Avalanche
2003 100th Anniversary H-D Dyna Wide Glide

That is a pretty painful story. I guess at some point you could have gotten the PB and the propane going at the same time and cut the job a lot shorter

__________________
85 300D (California) 220k
03 Silverado 1500 Xcab Z-71 Guzzler 90k Real American steel(made in Canada)
03 Suburban 1500 4x2 Guzzler 170k Real American steel(made in Mexico)
Diamondback hybrid
Element skateboard(mileage unknown)

Good news for diesel owners...There's no such thing as cold...only the absence of heat!

"Beer is proof that God wants us to be Happy." Benjamin Franklin

"Possession....the King of sin." The Avett Brothers

Wow......truly painful. I've been there myself.

But, on these engines, you have to realize when to stop and take a think about it.

Without the proper wrench, I'll just defer the job. The consequences of rounding the head can be catastrophic. Consider yourself very lucky that the head moved with the vice-grips. I don't even wish to think about the alternative.

STOP........THINK.......POSTPONE.


I recall when I had to hold the flats on the shaft of the wastegate diaphragm. Needs a 13mm open end wrench........but.......the wrench cannot be thicker than .180". There is no wrench in 13mm that is .180" in thickness.

So.....postpone the job and take the wrench to the machine shop and grind it down to 180". I believe it started at .250" or so.

One week later........job goes perfectly.

I admit that I have the advantage here because either of these three can be tapped as the daily driver at any given moment.........usually.

If I get to the point of vice grips, I'd rather drill it out.

Craftsman is the cheapest I'll buy. If I were going to wrench for money again in the civilian world (military buys tools for you, and no they aren't good-at least in the Seabees), I would stick to Snap-On, Mac, and Matco.

If it's something you're going to use once in a while, the difference in quality won't be apparent, so Craftsman is ok, and you might even get away with the Made in China junk. If you're using it all the time, you will know the difference, and the price will be worth it.

__________________
Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

I was working on a friend's 1978 Trans Am (our project car) and we rounded off one of the rusted solid bolts that held the driver seat on... vice grips of course. So we went to Sears and there are these socket things you put on the rounded off bolt (comes in 4 sizes, they'll fit pretty much anything and grab on) and then you put your socket wrench over that and you'll be able to unscrew the bolt without using any drills or anything... neat tool, cost 20 bucks.

__________________
1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

i love my craftsman tools.. i need to chase down the snap on truck i see all the time and beg for a torque wrench

they are called easy outs

The location of some of these fasteners, coupled with the size of the drill, will make that preference an impossible task on certain jobs.

The lower bolt on my 1982 300 SD is really seized up as I just did belts. Nice to read this cause I guess I should start soaking the alternator threads. Why dont mechanics use anti-seize more, this alternator is not original. Thanks for the post.

I struggled with that bolt as well. It's probably not the threads. The bolt has a long body that really binds in the holes of the alternator. In fact, that bolt should be replaced since it deforms during use in that position.

Once you get the bolt clear of the threads, you still have quite a job ahead of you to drive it out of the alternator.

Make sure you use a six point box wrench and get ready to really pull on it. I doubt that you'll round the head with this wrench.

The cheap tools seem OK for new, not rusty, pretty shiny fastener removal-which pretty much rules out anything I work on!!! Those easy-outs are dangerous-guess what happen when one of those hardened tools breaks off in a broken bolt!!!

__________________
1982 300DT 190K (Diesel Purge + synthetic oil=smoothness at last!!!)
2004 Ford E-350 6.0 L PSD 227K
2006 Dodge Ram 3500 SRW HO Cummins 4X4 48RE 42K (brute force tow vehicle)
2005 Scion xB wife's rolling pop can
1993 GMC Sierra C3500 6.2 142K

Consider the only positive out of this.. You did get a new propane torch.

for skinny metric wrenches go to your local bicycle shop. they're called cone wrenches for adjusting wheel bearings, and are about .100 inches thick.
if you're buddies with them they might let you borrow one (there are usually several sets around any decent shop) or they'll sell you one for like 5-10 bucks.

everthing on bikes these days is metric.

I've been using Ace house brand tools as the nearest better stuff is available an hour plus away. their 6 point stuff has the little nubs that grab more on the flat than on the point, which helps. it also helps to know the american relationships to the metrics. as in 9/16 is slightly bigger than 14mm but smaller than 15mm. sometimes really rusted or rounded stuff can have a slightly different wrench used on it.

and those aren't easy outs, they fit over a nut or bolt head and grab it. not into a drilled hole.

quality tools save money.

karl

Nowadays some Craftsman tools are made in China (not Companion brand sold by Sears). They have the "lifetime" warranty, but that really means nothing to me. If the tool cannot be used for the job, it is junk. It is sad that many of the name brand power tools are now made in China. Just check some of the DeWalt tool line. In a few years time, we may have to buy used tools to get tools made in the USA, Germany, or Japan.

I cant tell you how many similar situations I have had in the last 25 years of wrenching on mechanical items.

Fells good to finally get the job done.

__________________
1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair