Alternations: Part 2

Some of you may remember that my car broke down on the side of the turnpike a few weeks ago. Well since then poor Ripley has been sitting in my mother's driveway awaiting a brand new alternator. The plan was to fix the car last weekend, but mother nature had different plans for us involving rain. Instead this past weekend my mother wanted to do Family Photos, and we were set to fix Ripley after the shoot.

Aww! Aren't we cute?
Left to Right: C.J., Brendan, Mom, Rich, Me, Mikki
Photo by Anisa's Photography

When I arrived the dust covers and tire were already removed from my 2000 Infiniti I-30. Because of the way the Infiniti is built we also had to drain the radiator and move the air conditioner out of the way, two thing I can now say I can almost do by myself now (unless it's in a different car). Then came the daunting task of removing the bad alternator. It turns out there are a few blots holding it in place and one of them can be compared to the Lynch Pin on the Death Star. It was difficult to find and when we got it out the whole alternator could just fall out of the car.

No judgment on how bad I look trying to fix cars.

Now I would like to point out that I ad never seen, much less held, an alternator before. It looks like it maybe weighs 2-3 lbs. The thing is full of coils and magnets and who-knows-what-else and it weighs closer to 20-30 lbs. We then proceeded to AutoZone and bought a new alternator to bring Ripley back to life.
At this point we had taken the car apart, so putting it back together was fairly simple. Unfortunately we were running out of daylight and we had to work fast, but nevertheless we managed to get Ripley up and running like a champ. I even used the car to take my little brother to get ice cream to make sure everything was in proper working order.
Thanks to my parents who helped me fix my car up and my friends who drove me around for a few weeks. It was interesting to help fix my own car and the whole process was definitely an adventure.
-Allie