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Dammit

The damn bug broke down on me again today. It started with a whirring noise at idle, which fortunately I was at a place where I could stop the car. I opened the hood..and I have smoke from the alternator.

After I burned a finger on the pulley nut I left it alone so it would get it cooled off. After I got the pulley nut off, and removed the outer sheave and the belt, I saw the woodruff key partially sticking up at me. And there was play between the pulley adapator and the alternator shaft. So I had to tap on the woodruff key to push it back into its slot in order to slide the pulley adapter off of the alternator shaft.

And then I found the problem. The spacer was gone. The big one..between the rear alternator bearing inner race, and the center part of the pulley...it was turned to dust. Completely gone. And the front face of the alternator was being machined by the center part of the pulley.

How in the hell could that even happen? Fortunately the alternator still spins free, no noise, and no play in the shaft. But I have no idea how that spacer piece could just get obliterated like that. I found enough parts in garage to fix it and will do so tomorrow...but I have a strange suspicion this will happen again unless I figure out why it happened the first time.

Any ideas?

Chris

Reply to
halatos
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Did you use the correct number of spacer shims?

Maybe this link will help:

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noise at idle, which fortunately I was at a place where I could stop

Reply to
Jim Ed

Yes...what happened was 'revenge of taiwan'. The front of the alternator has that little 'spacer' between the inner bearing race and the middle part of the pulley. The pulley seats up against that spacer. I thought the spacer had turned to dust. It didn't, what happened was the middle part of the pulley, the piece with the slot for the woodruff key, wore down right where the spacer rides. That allowed the entire pulley assembly to move in towards the face of the alternator, and when it made contact it started machining out the front of the alternator, making the expensive noises and getting very damn hot.

I put in a new spacer, new pulley, and drove it home.

Aftermarket parts just suck some times.

Chris

Reply to
halatos

I have had this happen to me on 3 generators and 2 alternators. I suspected that it was cheap pulleys however it also seems to happen quicker if I don't put enough spacers around the belt and then do not tighten it down enough... OR I think maybe the spacers have thinned out over the years... so I added an extra one last time... AND I adjusted the "in-out" alignment of the alternator/generator on the stand so that the belt was perpendicular to the face of the alternator/ generator (the top and bottom pulleys were exactly in line.

So by getting the best (German) pullies, adding an extra spacer, making sure that there is no rotational play on the pulley shaft because of a worn out woodruff key, and aligning the top and bottom pulleys you will minimize the wear..... oh and if you are cheap like me you will also grind down the inside pulley along the outside where it would grind into the face of the alternator/ generator so that you can get more mileage out of it.

KWW '65 Beetle (The Inside Out Cow) '64 Beetle (The Blue Wave)

Reply to
G_Group

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