changing alternator

[ryota]

Hey guys and girls,
I don't post on here too often anymore, but I do rememebr there is a great welth of knowledge in this forum... so I figured I'd ask.

My yaris was in an accident a year and a half ago and I'm guessing something got juuuust barely tweaked and throughout time I have developed a noisey bearing sound coming from the alternator. I also have a problem with my radio randomly turning off anf back on at random (my cap seems to be losing its power and cutting out the stereo). So my plan is to change the alternator with a refubished one (not paying my local toyota place $750 for 2 bolts). My only question on it is how to make sure I have the proper tighness of the belt? my other question, do you think this will fix my stereo problem or are there other thigns you can think of (csscott the local electrical expert) that can be messing with my tunes? The whole stereo thing started about 6ish months after the accident (once every couple months then recently having a mind of its own) and the bearing noise was like a month ago.

thanks in advance for the help guys and girls,
Ryan

btw, my plan is to change the alternator now, then this spring/summer do a little rewiring of the stereo and replacing the factory head unit with an aftermarket one. I'm currently running about 1000W worth of stereo (give or take a w or 2) with a 1f cap. Don't know if that makes any difference on what you guys are going to tell me.


one last thing (since we're in the DYI section), with the head unit being replace I'm more than likely going to be losing the awesome placement for the ipod jack... any ideas of what I can replace that plate with? I love buttins and would love to put 4 new buttons on the plates but can't think of anything to hook them up to. Right now I have one a the on/off for my radar detector and one as the garage door opener for my dads house (which is now useless since I don't live there). So I need 3 pretty awesome ideas to hook buttons to haha (man do I love pushing buttons... don't ask why)