Naahh... it was definitely the internal pieces of the alternator that went south. I mean, when you open the hood and you can *smell* it, you know it's time for a replacement. :-)

The job is no fun (and BTW, it is not the same setup as on an 850, by a long shot), but not impossible. I never found any full blown instructions, but out there somewhere on the internet I found some references that sent me down the right path. The most telling of the clues I found, mentioned the fact that the part of the alternator housing that mounts to the block is actually trapped by the A/C compressor (common bolts)... if you don't loosen the other two (lower) bolts on the A/C compressor, you don't get the alternator off. Anyway, about 250 bucks and a few hours labor (I work pretty cheap, BTW!), and we have a fully functioning alternator with lifetime warranty, and a new serpentine belt.

One item of interest that I'll pass on for posterity - seems that for the 2002 T5 (and other Volvos, I'm sure), there are two different alternator part numbers. One of these has a "freewheeling" pulley (I call it a one-way clutch), and is meant for the manual transmission equipped cars. The automatic tranny on the other hand, takes the same basic alternator but *without* the freewheeling pulley. But the one I pulled off my automatic tranny T5 had the one-way clutch version. I guess it had already been changed once, and they replaced it with the manual tranny version by mistake. Or... maybe it was installed at the factory because that's all they had on the shelf at the time? We bought the car as it came off lease, when it was just over 2 years old with 30k miles, still in warranty. So whatever happened, it was apparently done at the factory or at the dealership.
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Gary L - 1971 142E ITB racer, 73 1800ES, 02 S60 T5
BlueBrick Racing