2003 Honda Cynic alternator replacement

I. Hate. This. Car. If I met whoever was in charge of this compact design I'd shake his hand, right before shoving it between the fender and the power steering pump in this engine compartment. It's just unbalanced and ugly in there. Maybe if I were a 6-year old with double joints and dislocated elbows it would be easier. Or a small Japanese man.

Also if it weren't sub zero degrees and windy outside. Truly, the middle of January is the best time to work on a car.

So this is under the hood of an '03 Civic EX. 

I'm glad for the opportunity to play around under there (under where?), because it has cemented my position that I'll never buy one for my family. And for an economy vehicle, there's nothing economic about the parts...

The symptoms were non starting but starter motor clicked. The owner had to jump it every time to get it started, but once it was on, ran normally. They were confident that the battery was brand new within the last 12 months, so we went with the next most expensive suspect, the alternator. I reasoned that the battery wasn't holding enough charge after being driven to crank the motor due to the alternator not alternating. I'm ashamed to say I didn't test the voltage with a multimeter, but I did use a "smart" battery charger with an alternator test mode (that failed). The battery did show good voltage and seemed to hold charge normally, but I bought the part anyway and went ahead with the install. If I have to go back in there to unfix it, c'est la vie. It's entirely possible the battery is just junk already (still under warranty) and was charging, but can't hold long it enough after a stop for a few hours. We'll see.

Belt-driven hydraulic power steering pump.

First, the top has to come off (*giggity*). The fluid reservoir is the red cap bottle at the upper right. It unclips from a bracket just by pulling straight up on the bottle. The pump itself is bolted in two places top and bottom. The top bolt, visible in the middle, is a three part piece of over-engineered nonsense. The little piece of offset extra metal cost someone their job, I hope. The wing nut is a tension adjuster connected to a horizontal bolt on the engine. The whole setup connects to a top bolt by the offset bracket.

Once the steering pump on top is loose, the bottom bolt has to be taken out. It's hiding behind the belt between the pump and the reservoir.

Another angle. I hate the way everything is squished in on this side of the engine. Slim box wrenches with longer grips would have been a help. I used 1/4" socket wrenches. I can't tell you how many times I dropped the damn tool straight down on the subframe. Need to invest in another magnetic tool retriever.

Nobody likes you, power steering. Go home.

Once I got the jeezless thing off, the belt comes loose and the reservoir can be moved away. The whole assembly with hoses and all can be lifted up and to the left and just set aside on top of the engine.

Always the small nuts holding me back.

Fun begins. Same deal here, two bolts hold it in place. One top, one bottom. Two wire connections are on the left (behind the AC low pressure line in photo). There's a small nut that holds the top wire on and the bottom wire is clipped in by a bracket and 4-pin connector.

Here's a closer look at the wire harness. The small black tab clips the harness itself onto the alternator body, and the green tip plugs in. Both the connections have rubber boots covering the clips and fasteners that have to be peeled back (*giggity*).

Top bolt, no problem. 14mm and a cheater bar, bust the sucker loose in a pinch. It doesn't actually come out of the car completely since it butts up against the fender well, but once it's out you can wiggle the alternator.

I didn't get any good images of the bottom bolt, but that's probably a good thing since I accidentally removed the wrong one and took out the whole adjustment bracket under the alternator. I should have only taken the adjustment bolt out and then removed the wing nut tension adjustment screw. If I'd known then...

This is where good knuckles go to die.

And I'll be honest here: It's now October. I did this so many months ago that I've completely forgotten how everything else went down. Long story short, I replaced the alternator and the car is still running. So... yay. In my memory, this was probably the most difficult alternator removal/install that I've done. Who puts the power steering pump above the alternator? The alternator is clearly going to be replaced first (if the car is worth more than a single shit). At least I didn't have to remove any significant structural components like the radiator support or subframe.

(Installation is the reverse of removal.)