The Alternator Adventures

Wednesday
Battery charge warning light comes on intermittently. I figure that it must be okay, as long as it's still intermittent (c.f. running out of gas incident). But then it stays on, and the Internet tells me that it's an alternator problem.
After work, I drive home trepidatiously, fretting that the lights are dimmer than usual and fearing that my battery will die. I get home okay and discover that a headlight is out (explaining the dim lights) and I still have enough charge to start the car again.
I trickle-charge the battery overnight (my neighbor dubs it a "plug-in hybrid") and am pretty proud of my workaround.

Thursday
Call up my dad, print out the relevant parts of the factory service manual, look online a bit...this looks like a pretty elementary repair. Should be able to do it myself. How hard can it be?

Friday
I loosen 2 of the 3 bolts, so the alternator should be able to pivot. But it doesn't. Why not? Is there another bolt? Is it caught on something? Finally I give up, and as I'm re-tightening the bolt that pulls the alternator against the belt, I realize that it is in fact moving; I just wasn't applying enough force. Hammer time, and I pivot the alternator down far enough to remove the belt.
However, I can't get at the last bolt holding the alternator in; my wrenches are too fat.
Running total: 3 hours.

Saturday 
Drive the car (a 1995 Infiniti G20, by the way) to the lab. With the right tool (a 17mm box wrench), the last alternator bolt comes out readily.
At this point, I expect the alternator to slide out, but it doesn't. It pivots, but won't come out. What. That doesn't even make any sense. I spend two hours wiggling it in vain while SC searches online. We develop various theories (SC suspects a 4th bolt, I'm convinced there's a spring pin), until finally, almost as a matter of chance, I discover that it just takes more force than we'd been applying previously.
And now the fun part: the alternator is stuck inside. Can't get it out. We tried. Believe me, we tried. We failed.
Internet says to drop the A/C compressor, but I don't want to do that. Could disconnect the coolant hose, but I don't want to do that, either. Finally we disassemble the alternator inside the car, and even then we are barely able to get it out.
Running total: 7 hours

Tuesday
Call around, prices are $170 at an auto parts store nearby, $100 on eBay, and $110 at an alternator/starter specialist in the city. Decide to go with the latter (can you use "latter" with more than 2 items?), so we take the train up and end up in this dirty little shop with stacks of remanufactured alternators and a bored Chinese dude surfing the web.
His computer says they have our model in stock, but he can't find it. He calls around and then tells me he can get it in 45 min. but I have to pay now. I'm a little sketched out, so I call this other alternator store to see if they have it in stock.
When I get off the phone, though, the dude's got a plan. He's miraculously found one that will work. I'm a little skeptical (SC is really skeptical), so we compare it to the old one, and the pulley is the wrong size.
Dude says he'll swap the pulleys. He ducks behind the counter where I can't see him, makes a bunch of loud noises with an impact wrench, and after 10 min. comes back up and says that the pulley won't fit, but if we wait 45 min. he'll get us an alternator from a different store.
SC and I wander around looking for food. Lured into a Vietnamese restaurant by a sign promising $3 sandwiches, we end up getting pho and a really good pork sandwich (the secret ingredient is pâté).
After 45 min. we go back and the dude has a different alternator for us. In retrospect, it was probably the same alternator; he just got a pulley to fit. It matches up with our old alternator, though, so we take it and head triumphantly homeward. Actually we spend 45 min. waiting on a cold train platform, and then head triumphantly homeward.
It only takes 2 hours to put the new alternator in (disconnecting the coolant hose turns out to be trivially easy). High-fives all around, and a shot of gin (there was some mouth siphoning of antifreeze, and ethanol is an antidote for ethylene glycol)
Running total: 15 hours (public transportation is slow)

Wednesday
Drive triumphantly to school to return the tools I'd borrowed from the lab. Yay!
On the way back, I hear an awful rattling sound, and a bit later I hear something small fall off and bounce along the road. I pull over but things look okay under the hood. I speculate that some bolt isn't tightened enough, so I drive to the lab to get the tools back.
Along the way, I hear a loud 'pop', the rattling suddenly stops, and the charge warning light comes on. I check to see if the belt has broken, but it's still there, just off the pulleys. And the alternator pulley is completely loose.
I call the dudes at the shop, tell them what happened, and we agree that the dude who put the pulley on was to blame for doing it wrong. He says they'll get the right alternator tomorrow morning and we can exchange it.

Thursday
I go up to the city to exchange the alternator, pretty straightforward, but I miss the damn train and have to wait an extra hour.
I put the new one in as soon as I get back. I've gotten rather proficient now; it takes me less than an hour. It's not really the right size (damnit, should have checked at the store; should've known those idiots would get it wrong), but I can still get it in, and I figure, what the hell, let's see if it works.
And it does! I'm concerned that the belt isn't properly tensioned, so I rev it up to hear for slippage. Can't really hear it, so I get my neighbor to rev it while I stand in front of the car. Sounds fine. Awesome.
"What's the light on your dash next to the brake light?" he asks. I know the answer to this: it's the charge warning light. It indicates an alternator fault. Damnit.
At first it only comes on when the engine revs above 2000 rpm, but after a few minutes it just stays on. It starts raining.
Running total: 19 hours

Friday
Try calling the dudes, but can't get them, so I leave an angry voicemail. It's a lost art, I think, mostly superseded by the passive-aggressive email, and I'm somewhat proud that I still have it in me.
The car still runs, so I drive it to school and to then to work. SC entreats me to bring the charger so I can charge the battery at work, but I don't want to have to explain the situation to my co-workers, and besides, I'd made this trip last Wednesday and it was fine.
On the way back from work, the ABS warning light comes on, presumably due to low battery voltage. Uh-oh. I also notice that my headlights dim when I step on the brakes because the brake lights draw too much current. This is slightly unsettling, but I'm secure in knowing that I'd made this same exact trip last week.
Shortly thereafter, as I'm pulling away from a stoplight, I suddenly find myself unable to accelerate. I'm thinking it's the fuel pump or injectors. I'm able to maintain about 25 mph, though (it's a 45 mph road) so I keep going, hoping fervently that it'll last long enough to get to a smaller side road.
There's no shoulder, and cars are passing around me, so I go to turn on my hazards, but I hit the rear window defrost accidentally. Everything goes dim and the engine falters. I hit the clutch instinctively and the engine stalls; now I'm coasting with a dead engine.
Without really thinking about it, I put the car back and gear and let out the clutch; the momentum of the car turns the engine over and I'm back to driving at near-idle conditions. It occurs to me that I could probably make it further if I turned off the headlights, but remaining as visible as possible is pretty high on my priorities list. In retrospect, switching to parking lights might have been a good idea. Anyways, I don't make it very far before the engine dies again.
Fortunately, I coast far enough to make it into the right-turn-only lane for the side road I'd been aiming for; it's my own personal Hanukkah miracle. I have a moment of disbelief, and then I just have to laugh: why didn't I listen to SC's suggestion to charge the battery at work? I'm a dumbass.
Finally I get myself together enough to start panicking. I need to get the car off the main road. Does the side road have street parking? Yes. If I can park the car I can remove the battery and charge it at home and come back tomorrow to move the car. Can I push the car there myself? No. I call SC. Voicemail. Shit.
I start leaving a rambling message--I'm having some difficulty being coherent--but then SC calls me back. Help, I'm stranded, I should've listened to you, I need to get the car off the road, go call your friends, just get anyone with a car and get here now. I hang up and start calling my friends.
It's in the middle of talking, though, that I realize I'm in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I can probably get help from any of these houses with the lights on...oh look there's a guy standing in his doorway right now. Somewhat reluctantly, he agrees to help, and together we push the car into a vaguely legal parking spot.
I call SC back, explain the situation, and the night ends with us safely home, battery charging in the living room.
Hypotheses for why it died this time? Maybe a week of deep-cycling the battery took its toll on its capacity. Maybe--and this is my favorite due to the irony--it's because I replaced the burnt-out headlight bulb, thus increasing the headlights' current draw.

Saturday
I borrow my friend's car, fetch my car (using the fully charged battery), remove the alternator (I've really got the procedure down now), drive up to the city.
The dude at the store sees me coming and before I can say anything he tells me he got my message, they're going to refund the money, and they'll give me back my original busted alternator too. So that went a lot more smoothly than I'd expected.
Still, back to square 1.
Well, I guess the alternator's out of the car, and that was an ordeal in itself. So maybe square 2.
Running total: 22 hours

Monday
Still need a new alternator. Local auto parts store has it for $170, but they gotta order it from their warehouse, 1 week lead time. There's a different alternator specialist in the city (this one was referred to me by a lab tech who rebuilds engines professionally) that has it for $140, but I don't want another trip up to the city. So I go with the $100 alternator from eBay.
It should get here in a few days. Until then, I'm trying my best not to think about this whole stupid saga.