I recently had my alternator replaced by someone. I was able to loosen the nut and the bolt attaching the alternator to the car, but I couldn't for the life of me get it out of the car because in the 98+ LS400s, there's too much crap in the way. The guy who did it for me had to remove the power steering pump.

I don't have that kind of expertise, flexibility, or knowledge to remove a power steering pump and put it back correctly.

I was thinking, could I just use a smaller, say, 50 A alternator from a Toyota Echo? Those are much smaller, and the mounting ears look to be at the roughly same angle as the mounting ears on the 100 A LS400 alternator. I bet that those are much easier to wiggle out than the huge alternator in the LS400.

Has anyone tried this?

 

you only have to remove the power steering pulley to get the alternator out.

 

I believe it needs to be pulled out from the bottom.

 

Dropping to 50 amps sounds like a bad idea to me.

 

Yeah I agree. You don't need to take the PS pump out... Like guy above said, it comes out the bottom.