I fixed my alternator!

Cool... They may have been in good shape, but when you had the alternator out it might have been a "good thing" to also replace the bearings.

Rather upsetting that you couldn't get replacement brushes for it, they should be a stock item :-(

Mark Rand RTFM

In this case the following saying comes to mind: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.!"

Way to go Eric!

Lane

Congratulations for beating the system!

Oh Gee! That take me back 35 years when I had an alternator go out in my '65 GMC pickup while on a hunting trip to deepest-darkest upstate New York with a bunch of other submarine sailors. Had to change a couple of diodes and was lucky enough to find them in the local auto supply. Rebuilt that thing in the tent after our first night's hunt. You are supposed to press the diodes in, but the best we could do was beat them in with a hatchet. No soldering iron, so we twisted the phase wires back together and insulated them with tape from our first aid kit. It came naturally; we just did pretty much the same thing we did when things on the sub broke in the middle of the ocean.

Five years later, when I finally sold that pickup, that jury rigged alternator was still going strong.

Thanks for the memories; Vaughn

Just think how upset the alternator re-build folks are, if everyone did this, they'd go broke!

Jim

Reminds me of the starter solenoid on the elderly toyota I had once - got all flaky, so I had to always park on a hill (manual transmission, started and ran just fine if it rolled a few feet and you popped the clutch). I was living in a hilly town at the time, but it did get old, so I eventually pulled the starter and opened it up (student at the time, money tight, what the heck). I found that the contactor ring was all pitted and scarred and generally nasty - I filed it clean, reassembled, and the starter worked fine until that car finally departed from the land of the living for other reasons.

Contraiwise, when I (with slightly more money) slapped a new solenoid into the starter on the elderly truck that replaced that car, which has an automatic transmission, so it stranded me when it died (it could not have the decency to die at home, of course), the solenoid was a complete waste of time/money - it needed a rebuilt starter. So I've learned to get the starter motor off the vehicle and take it with you when it strands you somewhere, so you can test the thing at the auto parts store, rather than buying the part you think you need because you don't have the motor in hand, and are in a hurry to get it fixed.

The alternator is easy enough to get at and the bearings give enough warning when they're going bad that it's reasonable not to replace them just because you've got the alternator out.

Also, didn't Lindsay (or someone) have a book on how to repair an alternator? It's sure easy enough.

Exactly!

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. --Friedrich Nietzsche Never get your philosophy from some guy who ended up in the looney bin. -- Wiz Zumwalt

The local

Back before government legislated owner repair out of existence, repair parts like this were readily available from any auto electric shop and could be installed in ten minutes with little more than a screwdriver and pliers. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Any automotive electrical rebuilder has boxes of them. Usually cost me about $2 canadian each from my local rebuilder.

As for the bearings, if they are still smooth and quiet they will likely outlast the cheap replacement bearings you are likely to buy today - chinese if you are lucky, from outer slobovia if you are not. The jap bearings these last 20 years or so are pretty good.

On the old Toyota starters it was common practice to flip the contact ring and replace the contacts.

I've had occaision to be the one to try that the SECOND time. Back then, the contact ring / disk was not available from Toyota or aftermarket - so I used to salvage the parts from every starter that got replaced under warranty. When the road man (factory service rep) came to audit the warranty claims and supervise the disposal of replaced parts, they all had old parts in them. Saved a lot of customers a lot of money repairing rather than replacing.

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 12:48:10 -0800, Eric R Snow vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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Well done. But lucky you. I had a windscreen wiper motor, make and whatver unknown, that had a broken brush. I wanted the motor for "other things". The cheapest set of brushes I could find for it (6mm by 6mm by 13mm with a copper "pigtail") was over $30! End of motor.

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 22:34:28 -0500, Gerald Miller vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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Explain that?

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........

Simple.... greed by the seller.

bp

Ever heard of legislation concerning "corporate product line fuel efficiency rating" or words to that effect. In an effort to increase mileage, every part is made to the absolute minimum and you end up with rusted out oil pans, four year radiators, and over all, early demise - of course the manufacturers are happy to go along with this as it sells more product, and anyone who doesn't want to go along with this can shell out for an "Urban Assault Vehicle" like an Excursion or a Yukon. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

This reminds me of my starter rebuild story. I had an 84 Mercury Topaz that sat for 6 months, started just fine but when the engine was warm it would not crank. I have usually paid about $35 for rebuilt starters so I kind of gagged when I got prices ranging from $170 to $79.

At first glance it appeared to be just an ordinary Ford starter. I thought I could get away with swapping out the nose but this would not work as the starter was a smaller diameter than the cheap ones.

They had a rebuild kit for about $10 that had brushes, bushings and a used bendix gear. When I removed the starter from my car I noticed that it was rather clean and had a shiny Exide sticker on it, suggesting to me that the previous owner sprung for the $79 rebuilt.

Upon disassembly the front bushing looked brand new and the rear bushing looked paper thin. The commutator looked like they scraped it on the side walk to clean it up and the brushes were all chewed up from riding on it.

I turned the comutator and polished it on the lathe, and had to guess at the amount to undercut the insulators. This took the most time with a little needle file and I dropped them about .025 inches below the surface.

I recommend a large soldering iron for the brushes however as the heavy copper braid used dissipated a lot of heat. I ended up using the spot welder to complete the soldering.

Rodger

Most of the modern satrters have an insulation between com bars that wear about equal to the copper bars. That makes it unnecessary to undercut.

I spent alot of years as owner-operqator of a starter/alternator repair shop in down town Los Angeles. and have seen alot of really cuude rebuilts. But, the majority of BIG rebuild shops are very good at their job.

Note -- I was a SMALL shop, but really tried to do quality work but $$ sometimes gets in the way of providing top quality so I got out of the business.

Jerry

SNIP Total cost was less than 8 bucks.

Congrats!

I'm on my third $7 set of brushes for my Toyota alternator. The slip rings are getting thin at 275,000 miles so I'd like to try replacing them next time around. Anyone know what type of copper is used and what type of epoxy to embed the rings and wire in?

On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 00:00:39 -0500, Gerald Miller vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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OK. But how else do you make cars more efficient, and lighter? And keep them affordable, by not using exotics.

I feel that this legislation that may be laid at Govt door (they mamke the laws), but which has to be done, somehow.

Actually talking of "ueban assault vehicles" rhrgrh! Bloody fuel guzzlers!

We spent _years_ getting cars more and more efficient, while keeping their overall performance as it was, in most cases. Now I see the fule economy is all shot to bits again, because the power of motors has jumped by 25% over maybe 5-10 years ago for a given sedan etc.

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:41:05 -0700, "Bill P" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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How do you blame the Govt for that, though?

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........