Sooooo, my company left, so I decided, tackling/fixing the brand new alternator that crapped out on the Road Ranger.
Backing up just a hair, when I cranked the truck with the new alternator, the first thing I heard was a high pitch tap/staccato, like a machine gun, but it just didn’t sound like anything big. I checked it out and I couldn’t find anything. The second time I started it up, it had a squeal. I shot some WD-40 through the vents at the front of the shaft and the rear of the shaft, and both noises went away. Then I drove it a couple days, and when my company got here, the charge was gone, it was dead as a door nail.
In my head, I’ve been fussing about it for four days. Today, I went out and pulled the air intake tube, and just happened to look down a little more closely before I started to unbolt everything. Where’s Waldo?
Can you see the issues? The little plastic clip sitting on top of the alternator, I’m guessing that’s what was holding the tag on through one of the vents. And when I pulled the tag off, that little plastic clip was still there. I think that was my Ratatat.
I know for sure (sortofmaybe) there was a nut on the shaft when I put it in because I was checking out swapping the pulleys, but they were the same size, so I just put it on. So I figured out where the squeal came from. I went in the shed of miracles, and took out the old alternator from my 1993 caravelle 23 bowrider, that I haven’t owned in 15 years, and stole the nut and washer off it (and put the alternator back). That was the back up plan, because I couldn’t budge the nut on the old alternator with a half inch breaker bar and a 2 foot pipe extension.
The thing that threw me, is the alternator gauge seemed to be in the right charging position, and I never got the red battery warning light. The only thing I can figure there is that the pulley friction on the shaft from the tension of the belt was turning the rotor just enough to keep the lights off, but not enough to keep the batteries charged. Does that make any sense?
Next couple days, I’m just going to switch off the toolbox battery and run around with the under hood battery and make sure it’s charging. If it quits, I can jump myself with the toolbox battery. If not, I guess I’m done with it.
Back to Big Red and Ole Blue….
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. The only real problem is there's some issues on the passenger side axle shaft, it vibrates like a mofo over like 35mph and squeaks going slow? I don't remember if I changed the U joints or not, I think the bearing at the diff might be bad since that seal was bad at one point when the expansion splines were rusty and stuck out a little, I know I at least inspected those joints and the spindle bearing...
