Sunday, October 17, 2010

Alternator being rebuilt

I found a local place last week that rebuild alternators and starters. It's a one-man show and the shop was absolutely chock full of starters and alternators. Even the floor was covered with them. He put mine on the test machine and while output seemed OK, I figured it prudent to get it completely rebuilt anyway. Since access is such a PITA, there's no way I'm putting a possibly flaky alternator back in. The guy told me my alternator had been rebuilt in the past, probably by a now-defunct local company called Start-Mart. They were notorious for only replacing the bare minimum of parts, then repainting the entire unit so it "looked new." My entire alternator had been painted silver and even though it's a Bosch, the voltage regulator was some cheapy replacement. I feel confident it's in good hands and I'm looking forward to getting up and running again.