Alternator Question

Ohmess

Ohmess

I wanna DRIVE!
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An old car will often surprise you, and indeed Annabelle had another surprise for me today.

When last I ran Annabelle, my brake booster wasn't boosting and my battery was fat and hot.

As to the battery, I had thought I had perhaps allowed it to discharge too fully through careless storage. I was planning on a really small Odyssey battery in the trunk anyway, so I decided when the old battery spit sulfuric acid all over the inside of my engine compartment (great fun that) to press ahead with the trunk battery. Having wired that up, I started her again, hoping to tinker with the carbs.

But just for the heck of it, I measure my system voltage at the battery and found 19.34 volts! I understand AGM batteries to be senstive to high voltage charging, so I shut her down immediately.

Age and condition of the alternator are unknown. Also, I am not sure about the output amperage and don't want to run the car to test this. So, rather than seeking to repair the voltage regulator, I am thinking of replacing the entire alternator, and upgrading to a higher amperage. What have others done here? Are there uprated (say 80 amp) alternators that bolt up to the original mounting brackets in the 3.0CS?
 
I had issues with 2 alternators from BNR. Generally poor build quality. Open yours and take a look. See post 1#11 here:

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/topic/162...reliable-alternator-woes/?hl=+bnr +alternator

I bought parts off a British Ebay vedor (many others but this one had everything:slip rings, diodes, brushes, insulating fiberglass sleeves, etc.) to do my own rebuild. Not terribly difficult and you know the quality you are getting. Watch for questionable quality Chinese knock-off bearings; market is rife with those.
 
Thanks Luis -- I took my alternator to a rebuild shop that is about an hour away. I was considering doing my own rebuild, but finding the components to do the work in the US was not easy. I had actually been looking at UK parts suppliers when I decided to just take it to a local rebuild shop. I knew the voltage regulator was bad, but also I wanted to have someone confirm the operation of the alternator after replacing this.

This was rather a hassle, but I am not willing to put cheap Chinese replacement parts in my BMWs, and I've read where even Bosch is having their remanufacturing done in China. This whole "decontentization" thing makes it even more complex to own an old car.
 
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