ok listen to this... I bought a 91 crx hf with 140,000 miles. the body is perfect...the car ran good everytime i went to check it out and drive it. the guys house is about an hour and a half drive from where i live so i finally get the cash up (2000$) and buy the car. i pick it up...1st off....the guy left me NO gas i went 2 blocks andran out..luckily ga station as near by...we push to gas station fill up the car and go to go home with the car. car didnt start...tried again...still didnt....i open the hood and check all the fluids... came out so see battery was dead...but battery is brand new...so what i think is its alternator b/c i heard if u have car running and pull off negative on battery and car shut off then its the alternator...so i pull it off and sure enough the car shuts off. so i talk to the gas guy and they said i can leave the car around back and their mechanic will look at the car. this happened yesterday(jan 3rd) and he didnt look at it yet. my guess is its the altenator..what do you guys think? if so how much is it gonna cost to fix in an average and is i hard to do myself? please give me all the info you can????? im in desperate need of help. and if i do fi it i have to get it home and the only way i can get home is towed and i dont know anyone in the towing business and i dont have a truck of any sort. so also if possible give me some ideas about gettin it and hour away. and also just in caseu need to know....i live in central jersey and the car is in south south south jersey. thanks, Rob

 

Had to do the same thing when I got my very first CRX. Alternator-$100 from Discount. It's going to take you about 2 hours of turning bolts, moving alternator, banging head on car, hitting alternator with fist, kicking tire, and removing exhaust system to get the alternator off. This is the worst thing you will probably do with your car. And if one of the bolts are rusted...you can forget that. If you look down the bottom right side of your engine (facing car from front), you can see it all the way back and on the bottom. It connects with 3 (maybe 2) big bolts, and has a bracket that holds it to the engine. I took off 2 bolts and took the bracket off with the alternator attached. You have to get it just PERFECT and squeeze it out by the exhaust manifold. That's like one of the only ways. Make sure to take your front left tire off also, makes it a WHOLE lot easier. If they guy will let you use his place, and it's a good place to work on it, I would say try it there. Jack up the front and try to get it out. If you cant get it there, then find someone to tow you. My friends Mitsubishi Eclipse 1.8 L towed my CRX one time. The HF's are only about 1900 pds, so any decent car can tow it around. Good luck and keep us utd on what's going on.

Jonathan

 

Well i got a place to work on it around here but i cant get it home....how would i tow it with a car? i mean its a long *** drive and i cant really do illegal shyt. how would i tow without a car with a hitch? please explain cuz if i get it home i dont care how long it takes or how hard it is. i just wanna get that **** fixed. thanx a lot for the input!!!

 

easiest way is to pull the master cylinder (yes it sux) but i did it that way and it wasnt so so hard to do...

 

Damn, wish I knew about pulling the master, would have been a LOT easier. My problem was though that the big bolt on the bottom was rusted and my dad and I had to get a blow torch and cut it off of the bracket, then punch the rusted bolt out.

Anyways, Race....up under the front of the car are two stud like things sticking down. They have holes in them. I have used them numerous times to tow or get towed by someone. Just get a towing rope, tie it around one of the 2 metal peices (they are connected directly to the frame of the car), and the other vehicle should have something to tow with. If it's a small pickup or something , just tie it around the entire bumper and hope the bumper is fastened tightly .

Good luck

JB

 

My Alternator was $350 including Labor, but I am 99.9% sure mine is Brand new because it looked fresh out of the box when I got it. But it was worth it.

 

If you are having one car tow another wouldn't you need someone in the towed car to press the brakes whenever you slowed down because wouldn't the car behind slam into the other one when the first one braked?

 

Yup, not to mention it's highly illegal around here.

 

well if you bought a new battery you could make it home just running off the battery even if the alternator doesnt work at all.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Make sure you get one from Discount, they will recharge them for free after it drains a little. And make sure you aren't blaring the 12's and the A/C all the way home...

JB

 

well heres the deal. i got it home by a tow truck and now all i need to do is install the alternator. can anyone give me step by step instructions before i put this thing in?

 

Alternator is pretty easy to install. I got a d16z6 in my crx and all I did was unplug the plug on top, lossen the bolt that lets it pivot and slide the alternator belt off. Then I had to take it off from down below because I didnt have enough room to bring it out the top. Anyway I think there is only 2 mounting bolts holding it on.


Yager-

 

You guys are paying waayyyyyy to much for an alternator...$86.00 at Autozone. As for puttin an alternator on.....takes 30 minutes, pull out the mastercylinder! One 14mm bolt on the bottem..pull the pin out....12mm braket bolt....two 12mm bolts on master cylinder....two 10mm on the mastercylinder "brake lines"

An as far as removing the negative battery cable to see whats wrong!!..you might have ed up your car. The car will always cut off if you remove the negative cable, the bad part is...the alternator is still sending power...so pretty much the battery isn't grounded..the power has no where to go..so it goes back from where it came....I think its called a "phase"...but you can screw relays. I did it and learned my lesson...I burned Ingintion coils every 3 months for almost a year..before I took it to a electrician to find the problem. And is was becuase I removed the negative battery terminal while the car was running.

My expericence with to know wheither its the alt or bat

push start it...if it starts up...runs fine and dies when you cut the car off..its the Bat--battery not holding a charge.

If your driving...and the car slowly starts to die, lights get dem (battery light usually comes on) battery is dead..becuase alternator is no good.

 

i dont know what i would do without you guys because i would be clueless without you. and FitCRX thanks... my car does die down when driving it and lights and all that go dim so it is my alternator according to you....so in case any of you guys read this who helped me out this is just to say thanks a real lot and i appreciate all the nice people on this forum for the good help you give me and ill tell you how it goes when i put new alternator in. thanks again!!! and by the way this is RaceFacer on my friends honda-tech name...


[Modified by mountaindru, 11:24 PM 1/20/2002]

 

Its def your alternator because I had the same problem. Drove home one night at 1 am and my battery died. Had to keep it over like 3k or it would die. Drove home for about 15 mins with no lights. It was kinda funny, but kinda not. I came up becide this guy and he looked over and just slammed on his brakes. But it all turned out good.


Yager-

 

ok i did the alternator project...it took me about 10 min to disconnect everything and about 1 hour trying to figure out how to take out the old one. Then another half hour putting the new one in. After everything was done...the car took awhile to start and sounded like a lawn mower for about 5 min then it ran good...im so happy i got everything done and all that and that job is in no way worth the 400$ they wanted to do it. im a 17 yr. old and if i can do it anyone can. I am RaceFacer by the way just on a friends Computer.