lol glad you got it fixed man...I replaced my alternator myself too, it it suuuuch a tight squeeze. The back bolt took me 40 mins to get off because it was so rusted on. And yeah, you are supposed to take the condensor fan off to get it out (I have the Helms V6 supplement). Good call on that.

The whirring noise is because a diode inside the alternator actually breaks and feeds current back into the alternator itself, or at least that's what I've been told. Mine used to get sooo hot...good thing nothing caught on fire. Piece of shit Delphi.