Alternator - Huh?

So I believe my alternator is to blame for the weird smell I got and then my battery being dead.  I charged the battery up and checked with multimeter and found the amps were not increasing when car was started and revs high. The smell, I can only think that the alternator blew - weird but sort of elec burning smell.  The belts are fine. Soooo my questions:
 

• I haven't done it in a long time, can a Gen 3 turbo alternator be removed from the bottom, without removing the crossmember? How many hours am I looking at?
• Has anyone got there alternator reconditioned lately? How much? I know I could prob find a second hand of the forum - last time I looked about 5 years ago, they were around $150. But i know these are now 20 years old... so reconditioning one is a good idea.

Cheers guys

I may be stubborn but alternator is loose, just trying to squeeze it through the crossmember and axle. Before i can do this, my Berk B Pipe needs to be removed. Ive unbolted but I just cant squeeze it through. I dont remember having to remove crossmember when installing it. So might just have drop the crossmember and accept I wasted time removing bpipe.

Is it just the three central bolts you need to undo?

ahh yess... its all coming back now...
 
Thanks

I do now.. I have the right wheel off already... yeh on jack stands and have done the earthquake test.

Depending on condition it may be best to reco your old one, so perhaps get a couple of quotes from different alternator specialists in your area.
 
S/H alternators can be a bit of a lottery and I suppose you know that if you're looking for a S/H one, the NA and turbo ones are different sizes, and the NA one wont fit your turbo mounting bracket.
They are different power ratings as well, and the early ones had a round connector while the later ones had an oval connector that will probably be the case with the one on your motor.

Hi, how did you eventually remove the alternator?  I'd seen pull it out the top but this seemed to be for N/A.  Did you really have to remove the exhaust and the cross-member?  The Toyota manual shows nice pics of the alternator being replaced with the engine out of the car!  Sounds like a Toyota engineer must have been on holidays when they designed this.  Thanks

Thanks for the tips.  Yep, my alternator is sitting quite happily on top of the cross-member.  I considered adding an inspection plate in the engine bay wall to the trunk to give me access but not enough trunk wall in the right place.  I know, what a cowboy:-)
 
I dream about chopping the last 50cm off the back of the car and remove the trunk and make the trunk firewall removable.  Much better engine access and ideally I could sit the engine on a frame/base, disconnect the various crap and then wheel the car away, leaving the engine on the frame/base.  This was how I was able to work on the engine of my rear-engined Hillman Imp in the 1970s.  I think that the car would look pretty good with a squared-off tail just behind the wheel arches.  I'm now getting ready to be flamed for my 1970s fashion sense:-(