The Lifetime warrantied Alternator

[Blacktank]

i have the cheapie automotive crimps and once again cheap things turned out to be cheap,to many crimp,test and pull apart,i'll get the non insulated terminals and a ok set of crimps when funds allow


i was thinking of actual silver solder like in jewelry but after looking it is more brazing rod with a melt temp of like 1300 degrees,i dont think the wire or terminal would survive
https://www.halsteadbead.com/articles/ty...in-jewelry

[sternwake]

I saw some fairly thick stock tinned ring terminals in Ace hardware today, uninsulated, in the fastener section, when i was browsing.

They have steel 'jam' nuts, which are half the thickness of a regular m6 nut, and I will secure the protective collar with a stainless washer that fills the full interior of the base of the collar with the Jamnut.

I intend to make a m6 threaded copper Nut with a 12 or 13mm hex diameter to reside atop that, and then ring terminals then final locking nut, which can be steel as it need not carry any current at that point on the stud. This should be a LOT of surface area between threaded stud and copper nuts and tinned copper ring terminals, perhaps even pulling heat away from the rectifier plate/diodes, instead of causing more heat by being hugely resistive.

If I wanted to go any farther towards ideal, it would require a larger stud, which is not going to happen, at this point.

[Blacktank]

up and running?

since you got me on the topic i search for pulleys for mine

the name brand aftermarket https://marchperformance.com/chevy-small...y-kit.html


the  ebay https://www.ebay.com/str/cvfracing need to contact them because i just want pulleys and not the brackets  


dont want a idler or tensioner just dual crank and manual adjust also need to find out if my power steering is keyed or pressed,hydro boost so it's the hydraulics for my brakes too

[sternwake]

Master procrastinator mode yesterday, and today so far. I'm gonna pull the Alt back out and get all ring terminals to stack around the soon to be made copper nuts, on a bench rather than in vehicle, even though the back of the alternator is easily accessible with the engine cover off.

I know you don;t need a smaller diameter puley, just wish to have dual V belts so your belt does not squeal when your house battery is depleted.

I did try the smaller diameter pulley thing on thelaternator previous to the most recent failure. i think it went from 71mm to 67mm diameter, and was not able to discern any appreciable improvement in low rpm amperage. i did not bother to transfer that smaller pulley to the most recent failed alternator. The hub dimensions were same diameter but the Nut holding pulley on only grabbed 3/4 of the nut's threads. I loaded the depression with Loctite and that was not an issue.

The second, outer V belt/groove , if I chose to employ it, was a few mm further away than stock pulley.

Just found the bookmark:

https://store.alternatorparts.com/241101...ulley.aspx

[sternwake]

Mcmaster Carr is my first shopping stop regarding fasteners, well before going to any stick and brick stores. I Just wish they would add a shipping calculator. My past orders they only tell you what the remarkably fast shipping costs, after placing the order and its not cheap.

I spent some time getting the stud shroud to fit tighter to the back of the alternator, and sit a little closer to it too.

The making of the copper nut(s) of adequate quality, is not done, but I learned a lot.

My dremel and diamond coated cut off wheel was basically useless at cutting the copper Hex around the m6 tapped hole.

I next tried the dremel with wood saw wheel, and this was worse. The stone likeeasy to shatter shatter cut off wheels, I forgot to try them, skipping right to hacksaw blade on Jigsaw, and I don't have any fiber reinforced cut off wheels, but I suspect their perimeter will just get non- abrasive quickly too, and just heat up instead of cut.

With the clamping of the copper, I had to free hand the jigsaw, not rest its foot on a nice flat surface. This can be dangerous and imprecise.

The 8 ton hydraulic crimper was not welding two pieces of copper together as hoped. But half as thick copper threaded, still has pretty good grip strength before stripping.

i wish I had the foresight to buy 2 4 or 6, 12mm nut's, on a long m6 bolt to use as a template for the hex . thread all together, line em up and hit el with a flap sander on the angle grinder and form the perfect 12mm copper nut.

Grrrrrrrrr. Wish Ace Hardware was not a 20 minute drive.

After I completed one functional yet horrendously ugly copper nut, I remembered I have some other copper stock from which to make a nut. nice thick copper,



I'm going to make the final Nut touching the ring terminals out of this pure copper heatsink. just going to get it to fit inside a 13/14 or standard star socket, instead of hex socket, and tap it, keeping it square, rather than making it a Hex. Huge amounts of torque are not needed, and i can always top it with a steel nut.

Regarding tapping of the copper......., center punching, and then predrilling the center of the hole is paramount.

The tap really makes short work of the soft copper, I am using a drill chuck clamped on the tap, and not running the tap all the way through. The nut gets stuck when fingertightening, just below the top of the stud, then the stud cuts the remaining threads when the socket applies enough torque to the heads. If I run the tap all the way through then the nut is loose and wobbly on the stud, making for weaker threads with less surface area in contact but with the stud itself cutting the threads, there appears to be 100% contact of inner copper and outer 6mm phosphor bronze? Stud thread.

The Steel nuts which came with the alternator, I can thread them all the way down the tap using my fingers.
The M6 Steel nuts I bought need a tool.

When finished, All my copper nuts and spacers are obviously going to be several degrees of overkill, but ring terminal compressed inbetween two steel 10mm hex nuts, is totally inadequate for the potential passing of 120 amps. and 2/3 of that for 30 minutes, Which I will ask of it on a semi regular basis.



AI need to make a better clamping station to do drill tap and file and cut this, I don't have a vice handy

[The Kraken]

just use the steel until you can get a copper


unless your just bored and want to hand make your own


i would like to go with a serpentine style,dual v has some issues,dont alway line up,belts never the exact same length and most important dual v adds more load on the alt bushing

[sternwake]

If I were in a hurry I would have just used the steel nuts provided and been up and running in a half hour. The weather dictates my Pace and it appears a worthy swell will be generated off the Florida coast by this weekend.

The pure m6 nuts I found online have a 10MM hex head and will likely be loose and wobbly on the output stud, meaning less thread strength and less contact area between nut threads and stud threads.

The copper nuts I will make will be tightly fitting on theoutput stud and have no less than a 12mm head for maximum surface contact between stud and nut and then nut and ring terminal(s) for best possible electrical and heat transfer.

This output stud, had I just used the steel nuts, would represent by far, the most restrictive part of my whole alternator charging circuit, probably by a factor of 10 or more..

This bottleneck resistance likely heats the stud and its base and rectifier plate well beyond what it should be seeing and could easily attribute to an alternator's premature demise.

Once my copper nuts are made and in place, that bottleneck will be completely gone and the most resistive parts will be the fusible link on the Factory charging circuit and the 150 amp circuit breaker on the parallel pathway to the battery.

Once complete my homemade copper nuts and ring terminal interface should help to even keep the rectifier plate and its diodes cooler, not only by eliminating a huge amount of resistance at thge interface, but by the transferring heat up the length of the wires by the second best material available to do so.

Almost any Nut would be better than a steel nut, but I'm aiming for the best possible conductor, short of pure silver.

If anyone's got an issue with that, please use the ignore button, or just skip my posts entirely, because I will always go beyond 'just fine' in my endeavors. Always.

[Blacktank]

then go all the way,stop by a couple banks and ask if they have a franklin or 1964 kennedy half dollar,they are 90% silver,jewelry or coin shop will have .999 silver,they will want market price were a bank can only charge face value of 0.50 cents,half ounce should be around $9 plus a couple 4 premium, melt it down to form and tap/die and start filing

us dimes,quarters,halves 1964 and older,peace and morgan dollars are 90% silver,british has sterling coins 92% and american silver eagles are .999% but go for $20+ but should be able to get 1/2 oz ingot at jewelry and coin shops,maybe 1/4 o is all you need

silver price at the moment $17.93 a oz https://www.jmbullion.com/silver/silver-bars/#

if you were close i would flip you a couple silver quarters and  dimes

[sternwake]

Its that Kraken guy....ruffling my feathers.

Today's process went pretty smoothly. but for the misplacement of my 13mm star socket.  The copper heatsink needed little pursuasion to fit tightly inside a socket, which then made drilling and tapping much easier.

Barely hit 60f in Central Florida today, locals wearing more than would an Alaskan in winter.


A 304 SS washer holds the Bakelite protective coller in place.  This collar was madeto fit better to alternator endcap, and opened up slightly inside to accept larger ring terminals.

A regular steel m6 Jam nut, of half thickness holds the SS collar tight to collar and collar tightly to alternator endcap

A pure copper m6 threaded square nut, which fits nicely inside a 9/16 star socket, clamps atop the Steel jam nut

Then stack ring terminals, and I'll compress them tightly with a steel nut and washer, then remove the steel nut
Then the copper heatsink topnut torqued atop the compresed ring terminals
Then a steel jam nut, perhaps thicker regular m6 nut atop that with a dab of thread locker.

Even if copper nut  threads strip, the mechanical and electrical conneection will still be solid and low resistance, and removal at some point down the road, would just be a bit more work

   

[sternwake]

To my chagrin and embarassment,
I was buttoning up some wiring yesterday from inside the van yesterday, when it started raining, and then drips started falling directly on alternator.

Turns out when i replaced my windshield wiper motor, the original thick gasket refused to seal properly. Should not be too difficult to remedy. but I should have actually tested it for leakage, and would have been able to avoid this expense of money and labor.

Fellow dodge owner's!! Take note, and see if after a rainstorm when parked, if the alternator is wet.

So the stuck brush theory was likely correct, as it sat for 3 weeks unstarted, through many rain events, just before it failed, and perhaps why I had issues with stuck brushes on my Hvac blower motor, twice.

I can likely easily fix old alternator, but now have a supposedly better Alternator with much better connections to and from it than before.

The Old alternator will likely replace my useless AC compressor, which has just been a pulley for 15+ years, but that project is way down the list as new mounting brackets needs to be fabricated for it.

I'll have both alternators on their own adjustable voltage regulator, and use one or the other, and both together, only when I need more than one alternator can make, which is a not a frequent event with my current battery capacity.