I purchased an Autoline reman alternator off Rockauto. The alternator on my truck has a pulley fan, and uses two v-belts. The Autoline reman did not come with the pulley, so I had to swap the pulley from my bad alt to the reman. I have not been able to torque down the nut that holds the pulley on. When I screw the nut on, once it starts to tighten, it spins the entire shaft that the pulley is connected to. There isn't a way to secure the shaft on the other side of the alt, so that it doesn't spin while torquing down the nut. Not knowing what I was doing, I took out the three bolts holding the case of the alt together, and opened up the alternator. My thinking was I could get at the shaft to secure it in place and torque down the nut. Of course the brushes popped out when I did this, and the wiring for the brushes broke. I figured this was my mistake, and bit the bullet and ordered another alt, the exact same model. I had the same problem with this, no way I could see to tighten this nut. There is a hex hole in the end of the shaft that the bolt screws on to. I realized I could fit an allen wrench in there, but this wouldn't do me much good because i didn't have a way to get at the nut with a socket and use an allen wrench at the same time. I realized this can be done with a pass-through socket. So I went to acquire a pass-through socket set. I need a 15/16" socket for this nut. I cannot find a 15/16" pass-through socket anywhere. Not in any set, not single, not online or in any local shop. As far as I can tell nobody makes or sells them now. The nut is recessed, so I can't get at it with a standard wrench.

The alternator makes a racket when I install it and run the truck. It works, charges, but it makes an awful noise, and I can't imagine it's going to last very long. I think the noise is coming from the pulley assembly spinning on the shaft and creating friction, because I can't get the nut down tight enough to hold everything in place and get it spinning together.

Does anyone know of a way to secure the shaft, or get an allen wrench in the shaft, whilst tightening the nut? Are there other methods besides a pass-through socket?

 

I know this probably won't help you but, can you weld? I made this tool for mounting GM struts.


One would think that the big box parts stores would have the tools you need for rent/loan.

 

Pull the ALT off before the pully comes off and breaks something.
Take the ALT to a local garage and have them tighten the nut with a impact gun.
That is how you remove & install the fan and nut.
Give them a $5 or $10 for their time as it's a 2 min job..
Dave ----

 

Cool idea but outside my pay grade.

 

Grind a pair of opposing flats on a socket. Then you can grip the flats with a large all-sixteenths (adjustable) wrench.

The socket will still be fully useable as a regular socket, too. I’ve got several sockets modified like this.

 

Great idea, I'll try this.

 

15/16 socket and 1/2'" drive impact wrench.

 

One more option: Shower valve sockets

Here is an el cheapo set:

https://www.harborfreight.com/shower...set-96322.html

Rather than use the included bar for leverage, get a large closed end wrench to fit on the outside on the socket.

 

I neglected to update you guys on my results here. I had been banging and prying on that alt trying to get the pulley on and off, and I was worried maybe I had damaged something, and was just tired of messing with it. So I went out and bought a Duralast with the pulley and fan already installed. It's been working great.