[slowpokecivic]

i hope someone can help. im at my wits end with this car. replaced the alternator 2 times already, both form running cars without issues or lights. not sure what else it can be. no burnt fuses. only issue i see is a low volt battery but a good alternator would take care of that. i saw that someone added a ground and thats what i did but still, battery light on and car dies/drains the battery after idling for a bit.

what i also notice is that the ground on the battery is not on the frame, but on the trans and then from the trans to the frame. can this be an issue? or can the charge harness be bad?

 

[ObeyYourRobot]

i hope someone can help. im at my wits end with this car. replaced the alternator 2 times already, both form running cars without issues or lights. not sure what else it can be. no burnt fuses. only issue i see is a low volt battery but a good alternator would take care of that. i saw that someone added a ground and thats what i did but still, battery light on and car dies/drains the battery after idling for a bit.

what i also notice is that the ground on the battery is not on the frame, but on the trans and then from the trans to the frame. can this be an issue? or can the charge harness be bad?

The only thing I can think of is the regulator. Though, I feel that would ruin batteries before it throws your alternator. The charging system is a very simple thing.

Battery spins the starter and keeps the electronics going. The alternator keeps the battery charged. The regulator stops the alternator from overcharging your battery.. There's a bunch of grounds, and positive leads.. Other than that, there isn't much that can go wrong unless your wiring is wonky.

Have you checked your belt/tension? Have you probed around with a DMM to check voltages while the car is running?

 

[slowpokecivic]

the DMM shows me instant draining as soon as the car is on and idling. I had the car on jumper cables and because of the other car, it stayed at around 12.3V during idle. which is right around what the other car was at.

there was a difference between the good working car and the rsx itself during idle. the other car was idling at around 12.5V.

whats the regulator? is that built into the alternator?

 

[newestbie]

If your battery is newly charged ( outside or on it with jumper cable) you will get 12.3V on idle anyway. that's voltage on fully charged battery. But if you continue to run and alternator is dead then voltage will start to drop when it drains battery out.
If your alternator is working you should get higher voltage , close to 14V.
Best way to understand , while engine is running, disconnect negative of battery terminal. if car continues to run then alternator is working and feeding engine. If engine stops that means alternator is not working and car was running from battery.


Yes , regulator is built in alternator. if its regulator part is broken ,It is possible to fix regulator after you open alternator. but you need to take alternator out anyway. There are regulator kits to fix or regulator only kits including carbon brushes on ebay . check their price .

changing alternator is not easy job, its tight area . may take few hours if you doing first time

 

[AzianK]

bump because i need to do this on the weekend, way to go lima dude

 

[bearcat]

hi everyone, first id like to thank OP for the DIY, it has been really helpful. Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the change in first go. I got as far as the last bolt on the alternator, the right one further in. Myself nor my friend who is bigger and stronger than me could get it to budge. We could not get a socket on there because the space between the bolt and the A/C hose (im assuming thats what it is) is too tight. We tried the round part of a wrench and although it fit, we couldnt get it to move. There just seemed to be not enough room to really apply proper pressure.

Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm running out of ideas.

 

[dc5luis]

hi everyone, first id like to thank OP for the DIY, it has been really helpful. Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the change in first go. I got as far as the last bolt on the alternator, the right one further in. Myself nor my friend who is bigger and stronger than me could get it to budge. We could not get a socket on there because the space between the bolt and the A/C hose (im assuming thats what it is) is too tight. We tried the round part of a wrench and although it fit, we couldnt get it to move. There just seemed to be not enough room to really apply proper pressure.

Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm running out of ideas.

jack the car up, remove the wheel and fender liners and go from underneath. an option that i tried that helped a little.

 

[newestbie]

3 main bolts holding alternator , all looking to front of the car. U need to work in gap between engine and radiator. I remember its very tight space u need to use socket wrench and work with small angle each turn. You can remove few bolts and move radiator and bulkhead 2inches to front to make little more space hard to remove bulkhead(frame holding radiator) completely since one bolt at the bottom, but if u remove radiator supports you can slide bulkhead front over edges of side frames. it may give you little more space. try to remove any rust first , makes harder to remove bolts, try air wrench if you have.
The part I had most difficulty was removing positive cable frm alternator

 

[RecarosCostTooMuch]

Replacing this thing is a fucking nightmare. Holy fuck. I want to die.



So taking off the bumper and headlight is annoying enough. Now, let's take off the 3 bolts. Top goes easy. Left bottom doesn't want to come out. Not only that, but you can hardly get anything down there to get leverage on it. End up unbolting the core support and rad to lean in back and get more room. Eventually the bolt gives, but of wait, there's more! The fucking bolt snaps.

Ah whatever. Move on to the last bolt. Well, what do you know. It's. Directly. Behind. The. A/C. Hose.....Are you fucking kidding me? Who puts that there? At this point, I'm about two hours in. Just can't get anything behind there to grip onto the bolt.

Finally get the last bolt off. Oh, you wanted longer wiring so that you could pull out the alt and unhook everything like a normal human being? Nah. Fuck you, you pleb. Unhook everything while it's still inside the engine bay, because it's simpler that way. So, I've spent at least 4 hours from start til I'm writing this now and the alt is still in the engine bay and I can't undo the nut that holds the positive terminal because I can't get anything in there.

At this rate, I have no idea how I'm going to hook everything up to the new alt.


Thanks Acura. I want to smother the fucking cunt that came up with the schematics of how the alt goes together on this car. What the actual fuck.

 

[black dc5]

Replacing this thing is a fucking nightmare. Holy fuck. I want to die.

Thanks Acura. I want to smother the fucking cunt that came up with the schematics of how the alt goes together on this car. What the actual fuck.

Haven't had to do replace the alt yet, sorry to hear it's a pain. Take a break and have some :drink:

Are you replacing it with an OEM alternator? I suspect mine will be going soon, trying to see what's tried and true.

 

[nats007]

Sorry for the troubles bro and hear you. I literally did this a month ago and the biggest thing is ensuring you have the right tools. Swivel sockets are your friend here.

Pulling the rad support is what helped me tremendously. Swivel sockets and an extension to get around the A/C line was the only way. I was able to rotate the alternator to be able to access the 10 mm bolt. There may be a plastic clip holding the harness, but there is enough free play. I probably got rid of the plastic clip to make room for my blower.

The plug was a bitch, but be patient so you don't break it. I pulled it out through the head light. Again, have to find the right angle to pull it out. The reverse is just as much a pain, but it's not as bad.

Good luck bro

 

[RecarosCostTooMuch]

Haven't had to do replace the alt yet, sorry to hear it's a pain. Take a break and have some :drink:

Are you replacing it with an OEM alternator? I suspect mine will be going soon, trying to see what's tried and true.

It's not from Acura, but it's a NAPA brand, so pretty much identical.

Sorry for the troubles bro and hear you. I literally did this a month ago and the biggest thing is ensuring you have the right tools. Swivel sockets are your friend here.

Pulling the rad support is what helped me tremendously. Swivel sockets and an extension to get around the A/C line was the only way. I was able to rotate the alternator to be able to access the 10 mm bolt. There may be a plastic clip holding the harness, but there is enough free play. I probably got rid of the plastic clip to make room for my blower.

The plug was a bitch, but be patient so you don't break it. I pulled it out through the head light. Again, have to find the right angle to pull it out. The reverse is just as much a pain, but it's not as bad.

Good luck bro

Thanks. I've slept on it and I'm not as frustrated now.






EDIT: I've finished the replacement and all seems well.


For those who are not mechanically inclined, such as myself, this might be pretty difficult simply because of the limited space. It's pretty easy to determine what needs to be done, but actually doing it is pretty difficult. The bolts can be quite difficult to break loose because they're corroded or too tight. Most of the time, there is only enough room to fit a wrench and even then, getting leverage can be really hard. Getting the alternator out of the car takes some patience, but if you pull it little by little, it will come out. Putting it back in was a little easier, but I'd say the biggest difficulty if none of your bolts are stuck is the second bottom bolt behind the AC hose. Getting wrenches or ratchets in there can be very hard. I've ended up using a swivel socket to get to that bolt and I'm not sure I could have otherwise with my tools. We also undid the front core support, the rad, and the AC condenser to get a little more room inside, which I think helped a bit.

If you have a lot of patience and tools, you should be able to do this on your own. But if you've never done something like this, expect to spend a few hours on this one.

 

[SteveBo RSX]

Did this yesterday. Started off great and I was wondering what all the fuss was about until I got to trying to unbolt the positive cable on the back of the old alternator. Stripped the top part of the bolt and luckily I was about to finally figure out a way to get a socket on there and got enough bite to remove it. I will tell you that if you can find a 12mm box wrench that is a little over 4 inches long it will take a lot of the frustration of removing that bolt behind the AC hose. The green plug was a piece of cake. Took less than a minute. Get a flat screwdriver and pry it under the edge of the plug and use the edge of the alternator as a fulcrum to pry it out while using your index finger to push in the tab at the top of the green plug. When you take the alternator out of the headlight hole be sure to have the pulley aimed towards the front passenger wheel and it will come out after you play around with it for about 5 minutes. All in all it was not as bad as I thought but it was not "easy".

 

[02RSXS]

When I did my alternator I removed the tensioner, unbolted the power steering pump, but did not disconnect the lines, set them out of the way and removed the screws holding the top of the T frame, which has the hood latch and to which the radiator is mounted. This provided me enough room to remove the bolts and pull the alternator up and out w/o the need to removed the from bumper and headlight.

 

[avlcat]

Just replaced alternator in my 2003 base model. Huge thanks to the author of this thread!

My two cents... I removed the radiator support t-bracket as previous member said. I also removed the condenser (passenger side) fan together with coolant reservoir. That gave me enough room to work comfortably. Thee is no need to drain the coolant, just take rubber hose off the coolant reservoir. Then remove two 10mm bolts holding the fan to the radiator and right (driver) side 10mm bolt holding coolant reservoir to the rad, unplug fan socket and detach bottom harness from the fan shroud and that is it.

Also always use six point sockets on 12mm alternator bolts, especially the one behind AC line. Twelve point sockets trend to slip much easier than six point and could strip the bolt head. When loosening the "AC line" bolt I used the swivel adapter. It is very important to hold the socket straight against the bolt with one hand and work the racket with other. Otherwise the socket will become off line and will slip stripping the bolt head.

I removed the cable holding blacked before loosening bolts (one 8mm bolt holds the bracket to the alt), then removed three bolts holding alternator. Then just rotate alternator a little bit and it will give you easy access to the power cable nut and green socket.

I used reman ProStart alt from pep boys, $116 with current 30%off promo, plus $50 returnable core. Lifetime warranty. First one was indeed used reman, came with cracked housing, glad I noticed it before installing. Replacement looked brand new, no dirt, perfect. Works fine so far.

 

[lilbit221959]

Can anyone tell me what is the most efficient alternator to replace my old one with. AC Delco is what I am looking at but want the most reliable alternator since this is such a pain to replace I am going to get a mechanic to do it for me. Any advice is appreciated

 

[newestbie]

I did bunch of research before I changed my 2yrs ago. I forgot details but original RSX alts must be 90amp. Since I installed bunch of stuff like heated seats, fog lights, trailer hitch and light connector etc, I wanted higher output and ended up buying from ebay 170amp alternator. You can find 140 to 200 amp alternators on ebay. Those sold on stores usually same output as factory original, or they don't even know/tell you what the amp output is.
Since I put high-power alternator, headlights don't dim off when engine goes idle , or windshield vipers doesn't change speed between idle and running high rpm

 

[callawaykj]

Thanks for the post. My experience has been to not only have to remove the headlight but to partially un-do the top radiator mounts and the condenser mounts to get access to the inboard bolt on the alternator. And...the wires and getting them disconnected and reconnected has been a nightmare. Good luck. All I can say is that next time if this comes up that its money well spent to take it to a dealer or repair shop. My time is worth something and its taken way too long to get this finished.

 

[black dc5]

I did bunch of research before I changed my 2yrs ago. I forgot details but original RSX alts must be 90amp. Since I installed bunch of stuff like heated seats, fog lights, trailer hitch and light connector etc, I wanted higher output and ended up buying from ebay 170amp alternator. You can find 140 to 200 amp alternators on ebay. Those sold on stores usually same output as factory original, or they don't even know/tell you what the amp output is.
Since I put high-power alternator, headlights don't dim off when engine goes idle , or windshield vipers doesn't change speed between idle and running high rpm

How reliable has the higher amp alt been for you now that it's been... 3 years since you've had it?

 

[Aaron_g]

After you get it out basically follow these steps in reverse by putting it all back together.

After everything is back together start her up and get out a voltage tester. Ideally you will want your idle to be around 14.3-14.7 volts. Turn on everything electrical and see how low it goes. You should be in the 13's or higher under load at idle. With all that load have a buddy rev the car steady at 2000 rpms and test to see if the voltage jumps back up into the 14's. If you get different values, you probably picked up a bad alternator. First time I switched my alternator it was doing 16-17 volts which messed up the whole car.
:beerchug:

I hope this helps you guys, I am on often so don't hesitate to ask a question or for clarification on something.

:beerchug:

You should make a YouTube video or page, Im on the let of taking off the bottom screw of alternator but I can’t find it