Located and picked an alternator for the Subaru on Friday. Since it was a long week, I decided to start in early on Saturday morning. The book said a pretty handy guy could change an alternator in about an hour. So I figured it would take me no more than 2 hours as I am pretty handy, but a careful worker.
Old alternator came out with no problems. New alternator wouldn't go in. If I put the botton bolt on, it wouldn't rotate enough to get belt on. If I put the belt on first, couldn't get the bottom bolt in.
Finally called the autozone where I got the alternator (45 miles away). They said it should be the same, part numbers were identical.
Upon close examination (after several hours of struggle), I did discover the casing on the new alternator had slight differences,-but those differences were enough to cause the problem.
Consulted a motorhead friend. He told to try a different auto parts store such as Advance Auto Parts, as each chain has different re-manufacture suppliers. Well, Advance auto parts had one alternator of the same number-but it was in Pontiac (almost 60 miles away). After Mass today we returned the faulty one to Autozone and went on to Pontiac and picked up the new one-comparing with our old one. It was a perfect match. (Usually I wouldn't be doing such shopping and work on a Sunday, but number one daughter starts a new job on Monday and the other car is without an engine. I figured this was the equivalent of having your ox stuck in a ditch.)
Long story with a good ending. We installed the new alternator in about 30 minutes. And all is well again. Total time: 1.5 days. (Oh yes, the 2nd alternator we bought was cheaper than the first.)
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