Alternator Failure, thought is was Gearbox

[LooneyLeon]

Hello all,

Thought i would share my experience on Friday night, I was convinced it was a Torque Converter, Gear Box, Diff or Axle failure and was basically pretty annoyed thinking great xmas etc.

So all was well as I was driving along, then all of a sudden I could hear a whining noise, I slowed down and opened the windows, sure enough the faster I went the more/louder the whine got.

As I turned into a junction near my house, the car started making a really loud metal on metal grinding noise and the car rev started to drop and eventually stalled as if the gearbpx had locked up. I thought either the engine had just blown apart or the gearbox, diff etc had locked up.

The car was stuck on the middle of two roads. after leaving the car and calling the RAC, I basically thought great here comes a 3k bill.

Anyway after I calmed down a bit I tried putting it in Natural and managed (with help) to push the beast a few yards out of the middle of the road.

The next day I tried restarting it, and got a really bad burning smell with smoke straight away. It turns out the Alternator has failed and locked up, so the Alternator belt was getting burnt up.

Today ive ordered a new Alternator, Alternator belt, AC Belt, 32mm Fan Wrench, Pulley Holder tool and I'm going to try and change the unit myself to save some money.

I've read a few horror stories about transmission failures etc so just so glad it wasn't that.

Guess the moral of the story is, just calm down and don't jump to conclusions it may not be as bad as you think.

I know there's a few DIY guides around on alternator replacement, but I might do a new one when I do this and make it really easy for people to understand.

I'm no mechanic so it should be fun lol.

Anyway Happy Christmas every one!

Leon