Magnusian

My alternator is in sorry shape it's been whining a fair bit and after much fuss I finally managed to get it out of my truck. Right now it's covered in some nice black oily sludge, care of my WD-40 attempt to shut it the heck up , but that isn't the problem. After I managed to get it out of my truck I turned the pulley in my hand with my other hand holding the base steady and noticed a slight off-balance wobble. On top of that I can also hear the sound of metal scraping against metal for part of the rotation. These two things are leading me to believe that both the bearings and brush are bad/worn. I haven't taken it apart yet, I'm almost too afraid to confirm the worst of my fears. Other than the whine it's been emitting, it seems to be charging my battery as well as a 6 year-old poorly-maintained battery can be charged. Considering that the sound of metal scraping on metal may be what's left of the brush (maybe even just the brush spring) eating away at the rotor shaft, and the slight off-balance wobble that may be a bearing-related issue. The question posed by my topic, would it be better for me to replace the bearings and brush, or take it into an alternator shop and have it completely rebuilt?

On the topic of having it rebuilt, I've noticed in some of my searches than some people here have them not only rebuilt, but re-wrapped for higher current or higher voltage output. Would it be worth having either done? I thought that making the alt work harder wore it out faster.

peow130

I replaced mine with one from schucks >.>
could be why my lights dim slightly when i turn my heater all the way up. Don't worry, they go back to full brightness though.

The schucks one hasn't given out on me, and that's with two 6" KC Daylighters mounted up in the back too.

myyota

You can get a remanufactured Denso alternator from www.partstrain.com for around 85.00 dollars. It sounds like yours is in bad shape, i wouldn`t try and rebuild it.

swampfox

I had tried to rebuild my alternator a few years ago,at that time the bearings where around 60 bucks, from the dealer. and I could not get them after market. I found it was easier to get one from the parts store.

Magnusian

Thanks for the advice. The local starter and alternator shop told me a few weeks ago that if I took my alt apart and brought it in, they'd sell me any parts I need to fix it. Last time I was there they were actually working on a few of the same alts, so I know they can get/have parts. Bearings and a brush are cheap, I'm worried that if the rotor shaft is being eaten into that I'd have to replace that too, which would drive up the cost significantly. I can't take it apart until tonight, and I guess that'll influence my final decision. It seems like it would cost me about as much to get a re-manufactured one (anywhere that is cheap has expensive shipping, anywhere that has cheap shipping has a higher price) as it would to replace any worn/destroyed parts myself. Taking that into consideration, I guess I'll have the shop fix it if the rotor is damaged.

If I give it to the shop to fix, should I have them re-wrap it for higher output, or just leave it alone? It's been charging my battery fine, but I've been considering replacing it with an optima redtop when my battery finally gives up the ghost (can't be long now, it can only old about 75% charge) and plan on running some fog lights and a hydraulic pump for running some of my farm equipment. The lights would probably be fine, but the kind of power I'd need out of a hydraulic pump might make it a bit of an electricity hog so I'd probably have to idle while using it.

abecedarian

If the shop can rewind it for output then I'd say do it.

Grunnen

northwest off-road has some 160A Nippondenso alternators. ~$450 pricey but if youve got a lot of stuff to run its worth it.

Magnusian

^^^^ I'd consider it if I was going to run a lot of stuff, but aside from a hydraulic pump and a couple fog lights and a cheap stereo I don't see the need.

I took off the rear cover to inspect the brushes and rotor last night. The brushes were worn down to little nibs about 0.16" long (below min spec) and the rotor has these two nice deep grooves worn into it where the brushes go. The regulator and rectifier both looked and multimeter tested fine. Today I took it into the shop in hopes of exchanging it but they didn't have any on hand to do so. The shop owner said just from turning the rotor and from the sound and wobble that my alt is in real bad shape but that he could rebuild it for about $50 less than me waiting for them to order one and exchanging, which works out to about $180 CDN after the government takes it's cut. It's a little more than I was expecting to have to pay, but not much more than buying one online + shipping + taxes + customs duty so I decided to go for it. I asked about re-winding it for higher current output and he advised against it since aside from the hydraulic pump and fog lights I want to put on I wouldn't be running a lot of stuff, especially since it'd cost a bundle to do. He also said that if he couldn't rebuild it by tomorrow that he'd order one and sell it to me for the price of rebuilding my existing one.

Here's some pictures I took of it.

It's dirty as hell care of lots of WD and some mud/dust from my farm. I don't have an oil leak though it's oil and crude coated exterior attempts to scream that I do.


Some more WD and a toothbrush scrubbing later, at least it looks a little cleaner.


Look at those brushes, worn down to nuthin'!


Shot of my drivebelt just because I had it off when taking the alt out, bought a replacement for it today because all that cracking is just scary. I should've checked it when I got the truck, would not have been fun to have it break while at the back of my farm, it's a long walk and my tractor is pretty slow. Wouldn't have been able to limp back, too many deep, muddy ruts from my tractor.


And yes, I am a computer nerd, this is my desk at home just because, don't mind the mess, I already do.

jesseunvoas

i like the microwave

also try building bigger ground wires i had problems with my 82 22r burning altenators and once i did that simple *and cheap* fix i had never had any issues

if you need a new altenator i've got one for sale pretty cheap too *spare sold truck *

Magnusian

Hahahaha, yeah, when I was in college I used to help run an IEEE branch and I bought a microwave for the branch office. When I left college I took the microwave with me and had no better place to put it other than on my desk, so now I can nuke Jamaican patties while working. It's not helping me lose weight.

The alt wasn't burned out, just hadn't been serviced in a long time by the look of the brushes. If I hadn't already paid for the rebuild I would've definitely considered buying yours, thanks for the offer though.

jesseunvoas

sounds good but if you need any parts for you truck i've got lots from when i parted out my 81 2x4 pickup

poynter

I just took mine to be rebuilt as I thought the pulley bearings were shot. The rebuilders only changed the brushes for $10. I have always had mine rebuilt over getting a reman thats pretty much the same thing but cleaner.

iamsuperbleeder

nice! a fello YotaTech computer nerd!

here's my desk rig








C:/Program Files/Internet Explorer/YotaTech/Thread Hyjack/End.exe

Magnusian

A thread hijack? Eh, this thread's kinda lost it's usefulness since I've decided to get the alt rebuilt. I'm sure a post or two won't step on any toes.

However you sir are a lucky bastard with that i7, we use them at work in our simulation machines (12gb of ram though), they're real nice. I'm running a Core 2 Quad Q9450 at 3.3GHz (my air cooler weighs about as much as my alternator, oddly enough) with 4gb of ram. The mobo on top of my microwave is a new one for this machine so I can start using my dual core celeron e1200 in a fbsd shell server to replace an aging 800MHz PIII I'm running right now. That filing cabinet is filled to the brim with hardware that is presently not in use and the clear plastic drawers contain more cables than anyone really ever needs. Have god alone knows what else when it comes to computer stuff, still have my 486's 420mb hard drive kickin' around.

I'd've done some better upgrades instead of a new mobo but right now my truck is the money pit, gotta get 'er on the road.

iamsuperbleeder

yeah I got rid of a bunch of old hardware that I had lying around, then splurged on this build after tax returns this year It's a pretty good little system, but could use another ATI4870 crossfired in with the one that's currently in it and maybe another 6gb of memory... got plenty of HD space though, lol, 1.6TB total... yeah I have a lot of files, lol, mostly movies, and I use the computer as my media center too, so it records all my shows


Yeah between computers and my Toy, I stay broke, lol. Maybe one day I'll put a computer IN my Toy

peow130

>.>
I see you're rockin the antec 1200.
I got my antec 900 still.
Windows vista is fail..

Magnusian

^^^^ Don't get me started on people who hate Vista, I willingly paid for multiple copies and have loved every minute of it. Though for anything serious I stick with UNIX like a good boy.

I never seem to have enough HDD space, got 2.66TB right now and a handful of GB of free space, not including the 465gb in my shell box. My presently down (need a new PSU) dual PIII Xeon 1GHz server has 12gb of ram in it, as for why, I figured why the hell not. Only about 36gb of hdd space though split amongst two SCSI drives. I've kept prettymuch everything I've ever downloaded since '91 (usenet rocks). As for crossfire/sli, I don't believe in it, why pay $500 more now when $500 a few months from now would get you better performance in a single card, letting you sell your old one or use it in another system? Then again, my gaming days are pretty much over so I guess that's a motivating factor in not doing something like that. If my Christmas bonus is big I might splurge on some hardware, whether or not that is truck or computer hardware I'll have to decide later.

If I were to put a computer in the Toy I'd look at those nVidia ION boards. They are pretty fast and small and would easily fit in the space taken up by a stereo. Heck, you could probably replace your stereo with one (hmmm, do I smell a new market?) with the capability of supporting a lot of peripherals. That, plus a multitouch LCD on the centre console would be pretty sweet, but I think you have to make it so the screen is disabled while driving for it to be legal (not sure).

peow130

i really hope you have 64bit vista lol.
i had vista, and it sucked...
i upgraded to XP.

iamsuperbleeder

Actually peow, that's an Antec 902 but close!

and yes, I'm using 64 bit; had to in order to use the full 6gb of memory


I love Vista so far. I've been using it exclusively well over a year (accept on my work laptop... but they're "behind-the-times" anyway, lol), and I've had no major issues to speak of. Obviously there were some compatibility issues when it first hit the market, but that's to be expected, and all that is pretty much cleared up now, just in time for Win 7 to hit the market and stir up the ruckus again, lmao

Magnusian

^^^^ The main compatibility issues when it came to hardware and Vista's release weren't a result of the OS but lazy manufacturers who dropped the ball on drivers. Look at ATI and how for 3 months after release they still had a beta driver with poorly hacked-in OpenGL that didn't even work.

I run both 32 (at work) and 64 (home/laptop), it's easily the best desktop OS I've ever used. It took me fewer registry tweaks and config changes to get it running how I want it as compared to 2k/xp/2k3. Many of my ancient USB devices work PnP without having to install the OEM drivers, including a mid-90s webcam and Epson Stylus 700 printer that is old as dirt. As for you "upgrading" to xp, how's that inferior memory management working out for you?