Fitting and rebuilding the Alternator

The alternator I'll use is the original. These put out 120 Amps so that should be plenty despite all the electrics I'll be running. Of course the electrics like seats, windows, motorised boot lid etc don't run all the time so in theory there wont be too much demand on the battery (or the alternator) at any given point in time.

The original placement for the alternator can't remain as it used to sit very low on the motor and that is now where the output shaft on the steering rack will be. As such, there is no choice but to move it elsewhere.

You can see here the steering rack output shaft....yep that's where the alternator used to go.

So the idea now is to find somewhere else for it to go, but of course it still needs to line up with the other pulleys on the motor as it will still need to be driven by the belt that goes round these. This is where the ponder stool comes in. Its a stool I have in the shed that I will grab and sit on with a beer and just look at the car to try and come up with solutions. I can sometimes sit there for quite a while, move it round looking at things from different angles, jump up and grab a tape measure or a straight edge, do a drawing and even get distracted and start pondering something else. These minutes spent pondering are invaluable....its where the solutions come from and it can save you a lot of heartache, time, effort and money by pondering things first.

This one took a bit of working out not only because of the relocation of the alternator, but also because the only solution I could see was to lift it higher.

That's an issue too though as the Power steering pump sits above the alternator.....not any more though! You see I had heard that these pumps have the reservoir on the pump itself and that they have a tendency to leak down onto the alternator and over time that kills the alternator. So I wasn't too concerned about the potential of losing that. In the end that is what I have decided to do and I will replace it with a remote mounted electric power steer pump. I'll cover that in a future blog.

Anyway, after that pondering I have now made room for the alternator. Next step is to mount it and get it lined up.

There was a mounting lug in the way that I had to do away with. It looked like the top one circled but I ground that away carefully with a cut off wheel on the angle grinder. If you look closely inside the bottom circle you can see a tiny indentation. That's the very end of the hole that was in the lug before I removed it.

 With that lug out of the way, there is now room to hang the alternator directly onto a remaining stud and of course I will use the lug above the alternator as well.

Now I have that roughed out, I reached for the pondering stool again to develop an idea as to how I might bracket the alternator. This put me off for ages, I just couldn't get it clear in my head. Now that I have come back to it all these months later....a solution has just presented itself. Actually to be fair, options have been racing around in my head off and on for many weeks/months and an occasional visit to the shed had me pondering these.

It came together though and the rough drawing for the brackets was made.

I then cut them out in cardboard to check for fit. Quite happy with that! 

I prepped some line drawings which were sent to the laser cutters to cut these out in 316 stainless.

Before I mounted everything up it was off to the metal polisher to get it all looking good, but first I had to dismantle the alternator. There are some pretty good videos on Youtube if you ever need to embark on something like this....and the hot tip....take lots of pics so you can refer back to them when reassembling.

Here we go....all the bits back from the polisher. Love this stuff. In fact it takes me back to being a kid with a guy I knew in Rotorua (Peter Brown) who was building a 34 Chev Coupe. I used to love being round there when he brought home things like door handles from the electroplater. I just love that attention to detail and seeing something old made to look its best once again!

I then cleaned up the parts to remove the polishing residue. Really don't want any grit getting into something like an alternator.

I then painted where the polisher cant get to, to complete the job. 

Ready for assembly....well almost.

First though, I wasn't happy with the huge positive terminal on the alternator. This comes out of the side of the alternator and will be right where the bonnet side will be, so it can't stay. You can see it in this next pic. The big brass coloured threaded rod. The cable that goes on that is linked directly to the battery and carry's all that voltage coming out of the alternator.

Thankfully we have an Auto electrician in the club and it was explained to me that I can rotate the internals of the alternator to move this terminal to a better location....Thanks Graham Weeks! Appreciate that advice.

To rotate these internals......

I also need to rotate the winding that sits inside the body of the alternator. This is known as the stator I believe.

These windings unfortunately have a steel casing and over time the steel casing corrodes and "welds" itself to the aluminium body of the alternator. I have sprayed CRC down the join and will leave that soaking overnight in the hope that it frees up.

While waiting for that to do its thing I broke out the Mothers Carnauba wax and polished the other alloy bits. Believe it or not polished alloy does corrode. Instead of red rust like you get on steel, aluminium forms a white powdery residue when it oxidises, so polish is quite essential. When these items come back from the metal polisher they are not protected at all. He uses cutting compounds and grits to get the item to shine, but there is no wax protection, so it is important to do that when you get the parts home.

Now that I have worked out how far to rotate the internals of the alternator to obtain a better location for the Positive terminal and now that all the parts are polished and painted and the bearings replaced, I am ready to reassemble.

And here it is all mounted.

Nice and square with the the other pulleys too! You can see I've been getting these tidied up with a bit of HPC and chrome also.

In this next shot you can see the alternator fits inside the outer edge of the chassis rail now that the positive terminal has been relocated.

 This next pic is looking down onto the top of the alternator. you can see the positive terminal (the grey rubber boot) is now here in a good spot to feed the wiring down from the top of the engine where I plan to hide all the wiring under the engine cover.

Its only taken a year but got there in the end!!!