Please help alternator covered w/ tranny fliud

Hello,

I have a 1996 Jeep Cherokee with a 4.o auto. Tonight I went to go to the parts store and noticed that the charging gauage was on 8 volts... I popped the hood and niticed transmission fluid all over the place, everything was soaked (belt, ac, power steering, alt etc)

I reved the engine hoping the belt was slipping because of the oil... the gauage did not come up

further inspection revealed one of the rubber tranny cooling lines was rubbing on the balancer hence the oil all over the place.

will the oil all over the alternator ruin the alternator? if so is it a hard job to remove the alternator? I have worked on cars before but for some reason I thought I read on a thread that it was a pain to get to these on this vehicle

or will spraying it down with brake clean do the trick


new battery 6 months ago. everything is tight and clean. new battery cables from the dealler 2 years ago everything is tight and clean.

Some liquid shouldn't kill the alternator, since it gets sprayed by water off the road occasionally. The low voltage was probably due to slippage like you thought. Once you have everything cleaned up, check the voltage and let us know how it is.

With the engine running spray some belt dressing on both sides of the belt. It's like a mild adhesive which helps stop any possible slipping.

Fred and Dave,


THank you for your input on my issue. I fixed the tranny line and then sprayed everything down with some brake kleen ( belt, alt, a/c everything that was covered with tranny fluid) and the alt started charging. It appears that the loss of charge was due to the belt slippage. Thanks for your immediate response

stay safe

:thumbsup:

Sweet! Another one bytes the dust..

Glad to hear it was something simple for once instead of a gremlin hiding out.