Hi, My alternator has packed up again after replacing it 3 months ago, taught me a lesson really bought it of Fleabay been ok since but gone again with no output. The seller has been very good and is sending out a replacement so I have no option but to fit that and see how it goes. Any more problems and I’ll get a genuine Vx one! Still that’s not the reason for this post – I decided to have a leisurely afternoon removing the alternator ready for the arrival of the new one. (getting quite good at it now). I remove the fuel filter and the crash box in order to get the alternator out from behind the engine. However yesterday I could not get the wiper arms off (need to get one of those special pullers for the job) to allow me to remove the trim and gain access to the three nuts that hold the filter crash box in place. Managed to undo them eventually via the pollen filter access hatch but its very tight especially if your like me and have hands like shovels. So having removed the alternator and having a bit of time to spare I thought I would have a look at a better way to remove the crash box. What I did was cut off the three studs on the crash box and then drilled out the remainder of the stud heads. I then put three bolts through the holes in the bulkhead from the inside, and bolted them in place using locking washers which leaves me with three studs to attach the crash box to and therefore easier fitting and removal of the crashbox without having to gain access to the area behind the bulkhead. Obviously you need to be careful with the length of the bolts you use to (a) ensure there is enough thread to take the nuts and (b) that they are not too long that they foul the crashbox itself. I used slightly larger diameter bolts than the original studs together with locking nuts to ensure they cannot work loose. Took about ¾ of an hour to do but will be a big time saver when doing future jobs. Bit of bad design really – why didn’t they fix the studs to the bulkhead in the first place when building the car so that access could be gained from the engine compartment!
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