Had my vette in the garage all week...pulled the front tires, and was doing some cleaning, painting under the hood, i had decided to remove the power steering pump, and see what was leaking down there.

Well heck. my son pulled in with his 2001 ford focus, battery wasnt charging, possible bad alternator.

So, i called the ford garage, asked for a quote on the alternator, and asked the guy, if he had ever replaced a alternator on a focus and what was all involved.

His reply; "and Act Of God"

I mumbled thanks..so i put the vette back together, pulled it out of my garage...holy broken knuckles batman...anyone out there that thinks its hard to work on our vettes, never was on the opposite side of a ford focus to remove a alternator.

well after a hour and a 1/2 of trying to get the damn thing out of there, i called my brother, ....we finally wedged the thing out...took it to a local alternator repair shop....hands it back to me...nothing wrong with it.....ughhhhh.

Turns out a small wire on the harness plug, corroded off..27.00 for the repair kit....cant wait to try and squeeze that thing back in the car tonight.....so i can get back to working on my vette, and i cant beleive i'm saying this, but, the easier of the two to work on.

 

haha yeah reminds me of the time i went to replace the headlight bulbs on my sisters pontiac..... no act of god, more like an act of destruction. Every car ive ever replaced light bulbs on was easy as pie. This car was completely different story.

 

NOTHING I have found on my 85 is as much of a PITA than the alt on my 96 Monte Carlo 3.4!!&*%%*$

 

Fellow Forum members, I love my 90 coupe and do a little work on it when I am able. My wife has a 2001 Ford Focus, there was a hose needing to be replaced so I opened the hood and said to myself, " Oh my God ", How the hell can anybody work in there. Allentown Ernie.

 

ford has some really great designs, just like my 2001 ranger with the 2.5L lima motor... it has 8 spark plugs, ad half of them are buried under the intake manifold

 

Ever tried to change the battery on a mid nineties Grand Prix? Vette's are easy compared to that brilliant design!!

 

I have a 96' Ranger that is the exact same way. 4 are very easy and the other 4 really suck. I will never complain about the plugs in the Vette again.

 

Hardest I've done was a heater core to an 86 mustang with AC, and the heater core to a chevy asstro van. Both are a PITA. Corvettes are easy.

 

Pulling the tank to replace the fuel pump on a Jimmy sucked, but replacing the clutch in an S-10 was a real PITA.