Hi all.

My Ghia seems to eat alternators...

I've killed voltage regulators in 2 alternators, and one alternator has just stopped outputting any voltage and the last one has bearing squeals. (does degreasing hurt alternators? I was under the impression they used sealed bearings and stuff)

I killed the second voltage regulator yesterday and my car is outputting 18V at the moment. (have to drive with lights on etc to get a voltage drop to keep it from damaging things)

I was thinking it might be a good idea to get a good voltage reg out of one of the otherwise dead alternators and put it into one that had a reg that died but was otherwise good.

Sadly I didn't mark the alternators when I pulled them out... so I don't know which is which. I do know one of them was a 120 amp EF alternator and the others were EL... but I don't know the part numbers to tell between them. An anyone tell me the numbers for EF/EL alternators?

Also don't know how to test a voltage regulator out of the car. (in the car testing is obvious) I have a fluke multimeter, but not sure what I'd be testing for. Don't have time to put them all in the car to test.

Anyone give me some tips? Otherwise I'm off to find an EF being wrecked in the quokka.

Oh.. two more questions... anyone know what causes voltage regs to fail? and I have an EA alternator that looks pretty similar, how hard is it to swap the pulleys over? 80 amps isn't as good, but on the other hand it has cooling veins so is less likely to die from overheated regulator...


cheers and many thanks

Frank

I just picked up an EF alternator for 20 bucks from down the road... so the pressure is off..

Might see what I can do to service the EF and EL ones I have here.. bearings brushes etc...

My wife has an EF and I have the EL so gonna need another sooner or later.

any thoughts would be welcome.

cheers

Frank

its one of those situations where you should just invest in a new or reco alternator!

True enough I guess. though since it's only 4 bolts and 20 minutes to swap one out.. might just be worth stocking up on some cheap second hand jobs.

I asked because regulators for alternators and other alternator bits are quiet common on ebay.

Here for example are some Mitsubishi brushes for 8 bucks.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pair-Mitsubishi-Bosch-Alternators-Brushes-/360263771501?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item53e164e56d

Can probably get the bearings too..

just a thought...

I think what has been killing my alternators is twofold. One problem up till now has been the fact that my power steering line has always leaked.. (not anymore).. over the last couple of years, the old alternator had copped a heap of hot tranny fluid though it.. can't have been good for the carbon brushes etc.. not to mention coating the cooling fins with crud and thereby insulating them from performing their actual duty.

The second thing is heat I suspect, it is fairly close to a set of extractors that get very hot (much more than the factory manifold did anyway) and the mitsubshi alternators don't have anywhere near the cooling fan on them that the older bosch ones had.

To that end, I'm making a small heatsink that uses the rear mount points for the power steering to keep extractor heat off the back of the alternator.

Time will tell if it makes a difference.

On another note, my ABS module stopped reporting errors since I replaced the alternator.. it used to error out almost daily for months but now not at all. I suspect my old alternator has not been completely "regulated" for some time now, it just eventually got bad enough to cause other issues.

Damn it....

killed another alternator.. I wish I'd actually gotten around to making that heat shield.

serves me right..