highway

Today out of the blue my brake light and battery light came on, is this usually the alternator ? Pulled it out this evening (man that was a task in itself) and gonna take it to a rebuild shop tomorrow.

Highway

Matt16

Chances are its the brushes- they are a wearable part and intended to be replaced at some point. You could go to your local autoparts store, buy the brushes for the V6 or 22RE alternator (they are identical) for $10 and install them yourself in 20 minutes. You need to know which end of the soldering iron is hot, but that's about as complicated as it gets.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

It could be a few things, but what those lights indicate is that the system is not recieving proper amperage from the alternator. This could be from a bad alternator, dead battery, or bad cables. 95% of the time, the alternator is toast or the belt is MIA.

Myself, i had this happen recently and the belt had broken (after only 6 months? WTF?!)

Matt16

I'd hardly call an alt with worn brushes to be "toast". Unless you've been driving around with mud suffocating the alt (heat buildup kills alts), its the brushes as I understand it. It was on mine.

highway

The alternator looks pretty clean and spins easy without any noise coming from the case.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

Toast=Not functioning. Take it however you will, but the fact remains that his alternator is not functioning.

abecedarian

Brushes do wear out and are fairly easily replaced. There is no guarantee that's your problem though, and you won't know until you tear it apart... so if you're up for spending the money and time to replace the brushes and it doesn't fix the problem are you ready to spend even more on top of that to replace the alternator?

abecedarian

was thinking about saying: Decided not to.

abecedarian

15-love

highway

Well the brushes were wore out (196,000 miles) replaced those and charges normal now

highway

Matt16

So I guess it wasn't "toast".

Mine lasted about 180 000 miles before that were worn out, assuming they were orignial.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

The brushes were toast, so i'd say its operational properties were "toast"

Maybe you can use a piece of toast to cover your dash lights

Bigblock

LOL
Bigblock

Junkers88

Glad it was easy for you. Mine died at 171,000 and the replacement alternator died less than a 1000 miles later. Stupid front main seal went out and killed them both before I could find out where all that oil was coming from.

highway

wonder if anyone has fabbed up a splsh guard for the alternator ?

highway

highway

hehe

TNRabbit

There are a few rubber alternator "gloves" around; I've seen them sell on ebay.