Well, this is embarrassing. I remember removing and reinstalling this part about two years ago when I took the intake manifold off, cleaned up and replaced the gasket.

A few days ago, I had to replace the alternator. I put it all back together, suddenly had the forehead smacking "whoops, where does this part go" action. This kind of dumbassery can only sort of be ascribed to 'senior moment' action.

The mind boggling part is can't find anyplace it would attach. I don't recall removing anything except the three bolts holding the alternator on and the two elec. connections, of course.

Little bit of anxiety here, it's a strong support piece, hard to imagine that it won't be missed at various moments.

I've told people for years to always photograph from several angles before you disassemble and while you are disassembling. Note to self...

 

Looks like it might go to the back of the power steering pump. Without it the pump can vibrate and cause the o-ring on the pressure hose to blow out showering the exhaust with power steering fluid and making a great big smoke show.... But I wouldn't know anything about that

 

That's probably just something you read about somewhere huh? That's a good tip. I was looking up above all around the alternator and I couldn't for the life me figure how it could in any way brace the alternator.

I'll pop the "hood" tomorrow and check it out. The last thing I need is the power steering pump self-destructing.

 

This is a support for the bracket holding the belt tensioner. The part with the big hole is where the screw holding the belt tensioner goes through. The other hole goes on the left handside bolt looking from the front holding the thermostat housing.
You have to loosen your belt, remove the belt tensioner, remove the nut holding the thermostat housing. Then wiggle in the support bar. Reinstall the nut, belt tensioner and belt and you are done.

 

Thank you for this, but that part is still intact. It does look a lot like the mystery part I was holding. I'm glad that was not it, I didn't want to have to remove the serpentine belt again.

I finally figured out where my part went, I'll put that in the next post to keep the photos tidy. Here is the one you were talking about:

 

Memory is a funny thing. I had to work out it a bit, but I was able to retrace my mental steps. I was certain that the only parts I had disassembled related to the alternator mounting points.

I had noticed an empty bolt hole on top of the intake manifold, but it was pretty dirty, so I thought maybe it was an old unused hole. No, in fact that was the clue The whole thing was slightly tricky because the part passes under the long oil filler tube in order go up and attach to one of the alternator holes. Here are before pics.

 

And the after pics. I am of course, glad I found this one. I don't think engineers put stuff like that in to pad their hours. I had taken the alternator out because of some serpentine built trouble. In December I lost the belt, the tensioner pulley was an older style that had a nylon center part - it self-destructed, went past its pull date. I was 50 miles from home. Luckily had enough tools with me to do the job on the spot.

I was a few miles from an O'Reillys, was able to limp to it, had to stop once and rest for an hour to get the coolant temp down. The tensioner pulley they had was a big improvement, all steel, a little bit smaller, which made installation easier.

A week ago I noticed a flapping noise, turns out about a quarter inch of the serpentine belt had separated and wrapped around the fan.
Enough belt was still in place to get home.

I investigated, putting a straight edge on the main crankshaft pulley, it looked like the alternator pulley was about 3/16 or 1/8 of an inch out of the plane, that pulley needed to move forward.

I had wanted to take the pulley off of the original alternator and shim it forward but after removing it, I discovered that's a tough proposition.

I accidentally ruined it on removal, was only eight years old. Heavy-handed fool, I had thought that using my Makita impact driver with extender would be a nifty way to get the nut off the battery cable as it was hard to get at. Oops, some amateur had fastened that nut on way too tight. It twisted the bolt right out of the alternator. iI fastens to the alternator with smaller hardware than the nut that holds the cable in place. You'd have to see it, pretty sure I ruined it.

I got a new one, and using thick washers moved the whole thing slightly forward.

Long story short, too late for that, the last thing I wanted was for the alternator to be mounted substandard such that the new serpentine belt might pull everything slightly out of alignment and self-destruct at some unforeseen future date.