The alternator on our 01 GS is more whiney than the supercharger.

I removed the accessory belt and spun the alternator by hand it feels like something'* dragging internally. It'* also noisey when spun just by hand.

When the belt is on it seems to be a lot louder when you first start the engine.

Any chance of rebuilding this thing? Or is it more wise to just buy a new one? Any recommended vendors (if I get a new one)?

My experience says that yours will go fairly soon. I personally prefer to buy a reman with at least a 3-year warranty. Even a slight torque-bias on a rebuild (you putting it together) can kill it quickly. I had one go for that reason in 2 weeks (assembly error by someone other than me).

Who'* the preferred vendor on a new one? And, how do I know how many amps mine is putting out?

My 96 cs 44 alternator was easy to take apart and rebuild. Nothing like the 90 SSE cs series that has silver soldered terminals.
Getting the parts is the problem and I have never had one fail.
If you are still charging but making noise you probably just have a rear bearing going out or needs to be taken apart, inspected, cleaned and lubed and returned to service if its not too bad.
Once you get your feet wet you get better and better at it each time.

get a used one from Ed for $50-60. they are 140 amp.

Well, I got a "new" alternator from Ed. It arrived yesterday (man that guy is a class act! ). Anyway....

Tonight I spun it by hand and it was more noisey than the one on the car. It didn't feel as smooth either. But, since I had it, I swapped it in anway.

Sure enough...got it all installed. Started up the car and the noise was still present. No louder, no worse. So, now I'm back to square one. I either got another dud alternator (what is really the liklihood of that?), or I don't know how to troubleshoot this. Maybe it'* common for these alternators to be a little whiney and I'm attributing this noise to the alternator? :? For all I know the alternator could be fine.

So, what'* the best way to find this whiney pulley? It'* not the supercharger. The supercharger whine in this car was never very pronounced. So, for that to start all of a sudden out of the blue doesn't make sense. I held a cabinet screw driver up to the top pulleys in the accessory belt path and they all seem to be noisey up to a screwdriver. No one seemed worse than the others.

What'dyathink?

if it was loud when you spun it by hand.. I'd say you got another dud :?

Ed Morad was nice enough to send me a second alternator based on my word that the original he sent me was also "bad'....

Got the original Ed Morad alternator off the car and started inspecting every pulley in the belt path (since I had a suspicion the alternator realisitcally wasn't to blame....seriously, what are the odds of having two bad in a row?!?!). Water pump was good. Power steering pump was good. Didn't touch the a/c since it was down to far. The idler pulley was really wobbly. I could grab it left to right rock it. Same thing with up and down motion. Spun it by hand and it was a little noisy.

After I inspected the pulleys I reluctantly installed the new alternator. After all was snug, started up and the noise was still there. No better, no worse. Alternator is out of the question.

So, now the question is....what is involved in replacing that smooth tensioner pulley? Before I reassembled everything I tried to tighten the pulley turning the 13 mm bolt clockwise but it didn't make a difference. Does the entire tensioner assembly have to be replaced?

uhhh, aren't tensioner bolts reverse thread?

just get a new pulley on there and you should be golden.

OK. Maybe my description was backwards (much like the threads).

Anyway, turning it in reverse unloads the tension from the pulley. Do I need to take it past the unload point?

What'* a decent replacement pulley? AutoZone special? GM?