How do you get the
Well, this one is a royal pain, but you've likely already figured that out. A neighbor had to have the one in her Escape done and after looking at it (thinking how hard could it be to replace the alternator for her...) I directed her to a friend's shop to have it done. He still talks to me so I guess no long term harm done, LOL, but he did say he was never interested in doing another one on an Escape.
OK, well let's get to answering your question. I'll paste the general information for you here, plus the link at the end of it to where I retrieved it from rather than type the step by step from my own memory, but this is pretty much it, including the bulk of the tools you're going to need.
One further note, as difficult as these are to replace, make certain you're not skimping on quality by going to some general parts place with their "lifetime" replacement units. Bite the bullet, buy a factory unit from the Ford parts department and likely you won't be doing this job again any time soon.
Here we go:
DISCONNECT THE NEGATIVE BATTERY CABLE
1. Block the tires, set the emergency/parking brake, and put the truck up on jack stands and remove the front wheel.
2. Remove the black plastic splash shield from underneath the right side
of the engine. It's held on by about 5 M8 bolts, and one Phillips head
screw.
3. Remove the serpentine belt. With the cover off, from underneath you can put a 3/8" drive socket into the tensioner pulley.
3. Next you need to remove the right front axle. Do it in one piece. Loosen
the 32mm nut that assembles the shaft to the spindle. Back the nut off
so about half the threads can be seen- you will hit the head of the nut
to get it to go back through the spindle. Remove the front (15mm) and
rear (I used a 3/4" but it was slightly too large) bolts holding the
lower control arm to the frame. I pulled the assembly away from the
truck at this time and braced it. Use a socket on the nut. This will
star the process. After it started to go through I used the jack handle
until the axle went back through the spindle. Now remove the 2 nuts
(10mm) holding the half-shaft bearing and slide the front axle out of
the trans-axle case in one piece. PLACE A CATCH CAN UNDER THE AXLE, YOU
WILL LOSE FLUID!!
4. (YOU DID DISCONNECT THE NEGATIVE BATTERY CABLE, right?) There are 2
plastic snap clips holding the back splash guard for the alternator. A
flat head screwdriver will pry these out and and if you're careful you
can reuse them. There are (3) M13's holding the alternator, two on
bottom, one on top (do the top one first, it's easier to hold the
alternator up to get the last bolt out. Remove these bolts and slide the
alternator out of the way. (Try using different extensions and a
u-joint on the ratchet, they can help in different combination's. This
will also help when you are removing the alternator bracket.
5. Now, that the alternator is unbolted, you need to take off the
alternator bracket. There are 3 (10mm) bolts that go from the rear into
the engine block. The top can be seen from under the truck. The next one
is below and the third is easily remove from the side of the car near
the wheel.
6. Once the bracket is out, you can you have a little more room to get
to the electrical connections. Be careful with the regulator connector,
you need to push inn the tab that holds it in. I used a flat screw drive
on the tab to release the lock. If you look at the new alternator and
you will see a square hole in the connector where the lock engages the
connector). The positive wire is held on by a 10mm nut.
Put is all back together. You will lose a little over a quart of tranny
fluid so you may want to pick that up when you get the alternator.
The hardest part for me was literally unplugging the alternator. There
is no extra wire so getting in there to push the tab and pull the plug
was rough.
Total time from start to finish was 2hours 15minutes from the time I
broke the first lug-nut loose until I started the truck, this included a run to
the auto store to empty my oil container so I could catch the transmission
fluid and a 10 minute break for some water. It was about 90 degrees and
very humid. I used all hand tools, no air. I'd be happy to go another 6
years and 180,000 miles before I had to replace this thing again,
especially in the summer when my other truck is broken down and taking
up the space in my air conditioned shop.
OK, me again. Here's the link I borrowed the information from for you and good luck on this one, it's a royal pain, even with a lift.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/465864-changing-alternator.html