It's up behind the heater/aircon box, you access it from the drivers foot well. It's tucked in there tight.

Yesterday fluidrive had a look at the gc, did a full trans fluid flush w filter and gasket replacement. They follow roughly the mb procedure where they drain from the cooler lines until the fluid coming out is the right color.

Yesterday was a bad day for my alternator so tho they wanted to do a “quick learn” they couldn’t, it wasn’t holding high enough voltage. But they don’t think there is anything really wrong with the transmission.

They did however find there is excessive play in the rear differential. It may be that the clunking is exacerbated by this they said, but it’s not a huge issue. They advised there’s not much you can do about it and it won’t really affect anything. Appreciate you guys input here.

I’m buying an alternator and may have a go at replacing it myself, I had a look today and removed the air filter box and see how tight it is. I’ve read you can bend some of the metal piping down there and get it out without having to do anything with the engine mounts. Unsure if this is still the case for our right hand drive vehicles as there is steering related stuff in the area. Also appreciate any advice here.

Turismo, what’s the possible benefit to a tcm tune? To get different ratios for off road or...?

The alternator replacement is not a fun job. I'll see if I can find the walkthrough that I followed. But essentially, intake pipe and airbox out, elephant hose and front kidney shaped resonator off, remove drive belt, remove intake pipe from the throttle body, undo alt wiring, undo alt bolts, then remove alt.

Up until the removal of alt its pretty easy and methodical, kinda follow your nose stuff. But physically getting the alt out is where you need to do magic tricks. When it comes out you'll realise it has the tightest of tolerances everywhere. Strange angle that it needs to be on to manoeuvre out of its spot. Be sure to remember exactly its orientation when it does come out so you can do it in reverse putting the new one in.

From memory, you twist it, tilt its nose up, and slide it forwards towards the rad, then bring it up where the airbox was.

What made it much easier for me was I hooked ockey straps onto the alt and the bonnet to help take its weight while I manoeuvred it trying to figure out the perfect orientation to remove it.

My brother did the alt on his CRD Commander before I did and couldn't figure it out (like most people) and ended up unbolting the drivers side engine mount to lift the engine enough so he could get the alt out.

Another tip, the alt in these die pre-maturely if engine is spilt on them from the filler above. That's how I killed mine, didn't do my cap up properly and 50kms down the road it had spat oil out the cap and drowned the alt. Merc/Jeep sell a alt shroud now that helps keep oil out.


Re TCM tuning. Heaps that can be done on the NAG1 especially as its a very intelligent trans, what I mean by that is that it monitors many sensors around the engine and vehicle like throttle position, engine load, speed, boost, but also airbag sensors (for yaw, pitch, lean, etc), steering angle, g sensors, and ABS sensors. It knows exactly what the vehicle is doing. This is why if you are turning a corner quickly and get on the throttle it won't downshift for safety reasons (doesn't want you to spin out if on a loose surface) and won't kick down and give max power until the steering is almost straight and the sideways g force is almost nil. its also how its knows to downshift and engine brake when you've hit the brakes hard and need to stop in a hurry. Also how it knows to firm up the shifts, hold gears, and quickly downshift when its towing uphill.

In my opinion is a fantastic trans and I like its stock tuning in our jeeps, and prob doesn't need to be tuned.. Note, the trans can be reset and re-learn your driving style as well, which I do every now and then if I feels its becoming too lethargic for my liking). BUT Yeti can increase line pressure, make it true manual when you manually shift (so it will hold gears until redline, and downshift when you tell it), sharpen up the shifts, move its default tune to become sportier, raise its torque limit (at your own risk obviously), increase torque converter lockup rates (so its not as smooth and slow to lock, especially when taking off, again obviously at your own risk as you're likely to start breaking CV's if your ECU is tuned as well and making bulk torque). So some of these tweaks that he can do, I see value in them as less slip in a trans is a good thing (at the tradeoff of smoothness).

edit: thanks turismo i was just posting this when you posted :) appreciate the info regarding TCM tune, I htink I'll pass and just do the ECU.

Regarding alternator, I have found Chirpz's guides and they will do me for the replacement I think. I have posted his guides in the how-to thread of this forum.

Only tangentially related to my GC, but I wanted to post some of the useful electronic tools I've been using.

Multimeter
you probably have and know how to use one already

Like this one
I don't have that one, I have a crappy one from jaycar but it works.

Checck your battery/alternator/whatever voltage, check your glow plugs internal resistance, etc. These can check current draw BUT if you put them i nthe middle of a circuit with too much current flow, it will either blow the fuse or melt the meter.

So for checking current that could be higher than the max unfused current of a standard multimeter, use a...

Clamp meter

I have this one, it's great
It's really handy to have at least two multimeters.

Benchtop power supply

I recently purchased this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...archweb201603_

I got the whole kit with interface, PSU and case.

This is an indispensable piece of kit and this particular unit has a really nice battery charging feature. it detects when you have a battery connected and tells you if the polarity is backwards (And doesn't let you charge a battery when you have reversed the polarity), and does CC/CV charging

You can use it to charge your crank battery or any battery

You can use it to run the electrical stuff in your vehicle, for example you want to test if a light is working without turning on the car, or if the battery is disconnected and you can't connect it for some reason - you can power whatever directly with this.

just set the voltage to 14.4 to simulate the alternator, max amps, and it will provide up to 18 amps to anything

You can energize a relay with it

I used it instead my battery when i was diagnosing what I thought was a parasitic draw issue. It was a huge pain in the ass to do this with multimeters:

- the in-line type, first type I linked, are very accurate but can only handle a certain current (less than a car might need after cranking).

- the clamp type can handle huge current but often have this short-term drift where they wobble, not very accurate.

so instead I connected the powersupply to the battery terminals, set it to 14.4v 18A, and watched what was being drawn. you can set the PSU to a graph mode where it draws out what was used over time. helped me determine that I did not have a parasitic draw happening.

anyways, you can get cheaper ones but this particular unit is pretty high quality at an very reasonable price.

Check this thread for a link to download a PDF for alt step by step guide.

https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f67/...-step-3864505/


EDIT: sorry I didn't realise you had replied and found Chirpz walkthrough. Thanks for adding it to the how to's thread.

Yesterday the battery light came on and wouldn't go off even after driving around at 4k rpms in 2nd gear - normally the alternator would start working at that speed. So I figured it's really dead, not gonna risk driving any more until fixed.

I was going to pay $100 for a wreck alt, from an individual, but it's 2 hours away. From wreckers in melb $330. If i'm not gonna drive the jeep, maybe I should have a look at the alternator and see if I can fix it.

Following Chirpz' guide I removed it. Wasn't that hard. I don't know what all the fuss is about. Maybe it's because I'm a rather slender person and can get my hands pretty deep into the engine. If I had mega sausage fingers suppose it woulda been a *$%*!.

Anyways, I found these excellent videos about repairing valeo alternators:



my front bearing is fine but the rear is a bit rough. and have a look at the slip ring:

https://i.imgur.com/xNYRvIk.jpg

this is what your alternator looks like after oil has been dumped on it and the brushes have worn down. that's copper dust (from the slip ring) and graphite dust (from the brushes) all gummed up with engine oil.

didn't take a photo but the brushes were also worn to nibs and one had partially broken off and was lodged in the gunk on the slipring

following the video more or less, I have replaced the brushes. couldn't find the right size locally so I bought bosch ones where are a tad bit bigger. sanded them down to size (super easy - it's just a block of graphite), soldered in place, checked continuity w multimeter.

local auto elec place has ordered a slip ring and has the right bearing so I should get those on friday and will install then.

I could have spent about $35 on ebay for slip ring and brushes, shipped from europe. but I spent instead $35 for slip rinng and $25 for brushes, more or less locally. worth it for the time savings as we are very close to buying a caravan and need the jeep for that!

so yeah this is what happens when oil spills on the alternator. it gets blown by the blades on the rear of the rotor into the slip ring and brush area. creates a terrible mess with the copper and graphite dust (which is produced during normal use).

for $90 (parts and puller) I'll have a reconditioned alternator. if I also replaced the front bearing it'd be remanufactured :) but don't think I'll worry about that as it really requires a bench press which I don't have and comes with a higher chance of screwing the pooch.

Great write up there. I guess the alternator has to come out one way or another when its on the fritz, so whether you buy a new one, get a wreckers one, or rebuild your one, its all going to be the same.
Ours is working well, but it gives me confidence to do this job in the future.

Cheers,