My alternator keeps wrestling itself free of its mountings. It has:
(twice) Broken the long bottom bolt that it pivots on.
Broken the tensioner plate.
Broken the bolt on the alternator side of the tensioner plate.
(twice) Broken the bolt on the engine side of the tensioner plate.

The second occurrance of that last one was at 1:30AM this morning, in the rain, 20 minutes from home, after driving 4.5 hours. My desperate roadside repair was to use 4 zip-ties to hold the tension on the alternator. It got me home fine.

I'm pretty sure I've figured out the root of all this now. The hole in the mounting bracket at the bottom (where the long pivot bolt goes) has been worn too big because the first pivot bolt that broke was too small, so it rattled around and enlarged the hole. Now even the right sized bolt rattles around, and the whole thing vibrates like crazy.

So I need to take a trip to the junkyard and pick up a mount and pivot bolt that aren't all worn out.
Does anyone happen to know if the 2.3 and 2.6 engines use the same mount? I won't have the old part in hand when I go to the junkyard, and a 2.3 engine might be hard to find.

Thanks,
-Ben

I'm fuzzy on this recollection, but there may have been a press-in bushing that took up the slop.

If there was not.... well, IMHO, it should be easy enough to drill the hole in the mounting bracket to a slightly larger size and tap one in.

Eyeball the existing hole for size, and go to a good hardware store with the pivot bolt in hand... you're looking for a bushing (good stores will have actual bronze bushings, but just about anything made of metal will do, as long as the dimensions are right). Find a bushing/sleeve with an outer diameter (OD) just larger than the mounting bracket hole, and an inner diameter (ID) just smaller than the OD of the pivot bolt. Buy drill bits that correspond to the OD of the bushing (you'll drill out the bracket a bit, if necessary) and the OD of the fastener (you'll drill out the ID of the bushing a bit, if necessary).

Drill these holes as straight as possible.

...or just nab a bracket from the junkyard. :p

Randii

Thanks Randii. I went for option B, and got a bracket from a junkyard today. I found another '86, so I didn't have to worry about whether the brackets are the same between the two engines.