Move over Rosie the Riveter - Michele is here & she and her wonderful husband sucessfully replaced the alternator in their car!

I'm rather proud of the accomplishment! Unfortunately the celebration of our first foray into the wonderful world of do-it-yourself [major] automotive repair was diluted by the fact that the alternator appears to not have been the only problem with the car since you can't run the A/C without losing power and stalling - and that's not a pretty prospect for a New England summer. But the good news is that the car should get us around town to work, play, and most importantly, for the move that's to take place this week. In older cars, you could just adjust the idle screw, but by the time our car was built in the early 90s the control of idle speed is mostly electronic and is influenced by the proper performance of no less than four separate sensors and three additional components - which of course is just the car company's way of getting you into their shop since you need a plethora of specialized equipment (and knowledge) to diagnose & fix such problems. I console myself in at least being mobile....

Good effort, but the beast has still got us stumped.