rebrush an alternator

[boxer3main]

I thought I would share some rebuild photos. I found the new brushes applied to over 1000 vehicles. This is very uiniversal. GM has some extra tricks, the pin for holding brushes, separate rectifier, etc..but this is an idea for anyone.

found new brushes, going ahead with an old one to refresh. this is actually not old at all. I may have found the remmanned error..its like they changed everything but old brushes. Very odd.



the left one is just shy of half mark. New brush on the right. something tells me this “remmanned” was not what it was supposed to be, as if incomplete. the original lightweight springs leave these brushes at 100k miles or more. oh well. Can’t buy something right do it yourself even better.



the metal with posts come through the back of alt. this is how I determine age. This one is young..maybe they did replace something important. bearing is like new as well. same for the front.



sanded up slip rings..also young.





cleaned up the leads awaiting new brushes. These were both bad enough where solder alone, with flux, could not self clean to a good connect. I stripped it down to nothing and used very find sand paper. Odd rebuild by whatever company did it. The brushes don’t match the time of other parts. Silliness.

part two will be my masterful giant hand soldering job.

[boxer3main]

A glimpse of the alt bearing, rear.. I thought “no. could not be.”

yep. it is the same exact size as the pilot bearing for clutch. the silver new one is from a spec stage 1 set, that I never used. Given the alternator in photo is nearly brand new, it won’t get the bearings. The right bearing is simply from yet another, even younger alternator… will save for a special occasion. I also have another case half..has not even been used enough to gather a dusty mess.

The alternator in the car may get the new bearings..there is a resonance occasionally on the way to warm. Still very nice however.

[wyrmrider]

I just installed new brushes in a Dodge Nippondenso 120A alternator
Turns out that there is an early and a late brusholder with either two or three pins
Of course I did the wrong one first
With out saying bearing quality is all over the place
BVVC
(some photos missing?)

[boxer3main]

I just installed new brushes in a Dodge Nippondenso 120A alternator
Turns out that there is an early and a late brusholder with either two or three pins
Of course I did the wrong one first
With out saying bearing quality is all over the place
BVVC
(some photos missing?)

nippondenso..that seems to ring a bell. this is for a sube, and many others. They change numbers..but come rebuild, the brushes match more than 1000 vehicles.
you can find it in the first of ecus and the 80s (60 amper- a fine power), many many freaking cars, not just asian. dodge, ford, the little ones..they can take it if the bracket fits. even a mazda rotary.

[boxer3main]

Being they did not replace brushes in 3 of the rebuilds..I was thinking the srpings must have 4 subarus and a millon miles each. I was thinking of a way to harden them, clean them..stretch a little bit. The new brushes for some reason do not have new springs.


seeing the new brushes are only longer than the short used ones in my so called “remanned” alternator. It will increase pressure on the springs…but I was remembering a way to temper them into harder. I left on the burner for 20 minutes, dropped in cold glass of water. The goal is not to notice a thing.

[SuperBuickGuy]

"the alternator bearing is the same size as the throwout bearing" lol

[boxer3main]

"the alternator bearing is the same size as the throwout bearing" lol

pilot bearing, sits in flywheel. throwout is very large..totally different thing. I bet a wheel bearing could make a thowout bearing.

the front alternator bearing may be going in the power steering however..
I'll have to check it.

[SuperBuickGuy]

pilot bearing, sits in flywheel. throwout is very large..totally different thing. I bet a wheel bearing could make a thowout bearing.

the front alternator bearing may be going in the power steering however..
I'll have to check it.

those Japanese are sure clever about all the places they can use one part number

[boxer3main]

those Japanese are sure clever about all the places they can use one part number

and then change the part number, call it something else..refuse to admit it fits a thousand other vehicles, and get away with a rpice range from 1 dollar to 50 for the same thing. yeah. thats clever. Military gets defensive for good reason.

anyhoo...more finds to fix on the kamikaze alternators:


another interesting find.. I could not figure out how these nubs hung out there uninsulated. The one aiming up had nothing. Some heatshrink operation and good to go, better than the oem one. Speaking of oem trickery.. the brushes I initially found were for 1000 vehicles. I thn found another set for the same car…but it lists for turbos and performance japanese..narrowed down to 360 vehicles. % more bucks, but with a brand name and seeming specific, will be getting those instead. If to tear into an alternator, do look close at these little things. “Remanned” seems to be a bad word sometimes.

I was glad to find the "other" brushes for the same alternator, even the leads are fatter. brushes longer, made by airtex. The new brushes, again, will need a careful partial heatshrink from the point of leaving brush holder to the connections in photo..else it will arc off the casing in certain thunderous weather..or maine just being maine 99% of the year.

I did not find this stuff until powerful ignition.

EDIT:
another quick repair to get it by. the current alternator is jumping gauge.
the alt above, all clean was awaiting brushes. I found two at 3/4 length (that is about 50k miles left) and soldered them in, insulated.
I took the alt going weird out of car and found I did not clean the slip rings. Not sure why I was in a hurry..anyway, that alt is going to get new brushes, after thorough cleaning. Even found goopy grease on the volt regulator connects underside..it still charged and worked. No doubt a reason they get away with alot, these things have a serious danger and need to be solid state foolproof.

So two good alts on the way.. the one I just rebrushed used was the remanned with offset brushes...strangely. Now goes like a rock, like it once did.

****

an indicator for some errors on alternators...stator warm (outside middle of alternator- or is that rotor) either way, that is good. that means magnet is charged, alternator is seating itself. Does cooldown after install, some miles. if the whole alternator gets warm and no jumpiness on the gauge...the slip rings are dirty..but brushes connected. if jumpiness, the whole thing gets warm, and indicates a brush is not long enough or bad spring on the brush. Stuck to pegged on charge instantly blows a fuse if it is the car doing it, if not a bad volt regulator is not common, but could be culprit..clean all the connects at soldering points. No charge at all is simply broken. About the only time to turn one in for me..as the solders for volt regulator are very intesively tiny chores on this one.

rectifiers bad will leave no function at all.. as that is a danger when failed, they make it so no volts is allowed at all. That would be a/c volts flying high.

[boxer3main]

looking over the jumpy alternator..this one got hot all over, gauge climbed when volts were needed, but something too dyamical was happening. went up to near 18v, and back down to low charge light. I went to rockauto and found regulators from 4 bucks to 70. even an ac delco version to fit this. The solderings are not as intimidating as I allowed myself to believe. the alt checked out at the rectifier, as they are diodes..it is simply a matter of finding a pttern of direction with no return..or return reading negative versus positive.. rather than describe that, I can only say it is good.

An interesting thing was the epoxy stuff in regulator. this one had bubbles on its cover like something came through the regulator. The rubber stuff was brittle. 22 years old. Matching the miles of the engine it came with, puts it at 90k.

So, now I can build with parts of my choosing, less than ten bucks, ot take to near 100..up to me. AC delco regulator, airtex brushes is the near 100 rebuild. although the regulator is a bit steep, will hunt around for another ac delco seller…if not, generic exists. This is as new as they get.
there is combos, like ac deloc brushes and regulator, airtex also has their own version of both..pairing these together is probably something most would do as common sense. Me? who cares. I have had strands of speaker wire soldered into two different brushes to keep these going (I am in the woods it seems, before there was internet)

also, see the left bolt hanging down has a gadget on it..that is a mega resistor. Checking that is easy..I let it climb at its own pace to 1.1 mega ohm and called it good. it says 500M on it, 250v.




I opted to go for airtex..reg and brushes. 15 bucks total.
the photos at rockauto made up my mind. I am wondering if any regulator that has stamped writing or divets are the ones that go bad..as you can see, airtex gives a separate diagram, no labels on the reg cover. Solid cover.

the letter "E" also has extra spots on the alternator itself, labeled on the case, You can use your own wire. this is the -12v monster nobody has to pay attention to. Nearly impossible to mess up.. yet my car has. The subaru is flat engine, the battery ground goes way back to the starter, alternator is up front..what is inbetween? two spark plugs lit up like an accel can do them. For the alt to be reading the sensitve sensing for the sensor is not sensibly happening. I chose the old engine ground wire (now a spare, as I made my own engine to chassis wire bigger) with hookups in place to go to the "E" spot on alternator, and direct shot over to battery ground at the battery. . this will stop jumpiness. Can't get much closer to smooth out an unknown regulation problem.I chose the big wire to do this to match the battery positive feed to alternator. equal size for pos and neg. Not many cars contend with this.. I still think its the placement of spark plugs, and a boxer being linear lets nothing out the bottom like other engines to earth.

The alternator may as well be a thousand miles away from the battery ground, for an alternators purpose. I mention this, as this car and alternators is not exactly happy. the extra "E" wire direct shot fixes the only problem to treat it like any other car. Have not had this problem until recently..the last time was a 78 delta 88 in 1988.