JJCIII

I recently had issues with my charging system. Intermittent at first and then constant. It turns out, the alternator fields source brush was completely worn out. My first test was the wiggle test. I simply pushed the field terminal block towards the rotor and boom it charged again, although not as well as it should. And on a bench test I simply connected my dmm continuity beeper to the field terminals on the back of the alternator. No beep means bad brushes or the rotor end cap surfaces may be covered with arc debris. My local starting and charging rebuilding shop gave me new brushes for free, he had just sold his last denso brush holder just before I got there. Which would have been a mush easier fix. I on the other hand had to solder in my own brushes. It's very important to pay attention to the tension of the leads while soldering. The tension is cause by the spring behind the brush. Holding the brush to far into the holder while soldering will cause premature charging issues which caused the problem in the first place. Hold them to far out and you run the risk if the brushes falling out of the holder after they have worn out. Overall it was a free fix but thanks to my yellow top optima I was able to drive on battery power until I was able to fix it. Found an adjustable external voltage regulator that runs around $70. Better price than that $200 job from some company in Vegas(which isn't even adjustable). I haven't bought it yet but that is next. This is a picture of both of my old brushes, the shortest if the two was the field source brush. Which cause some quite a bit of arcing, that was fixed with some fine sandpaper. The new brushes are about an 1/8 if an inch longer than the bigger one. http://store.alternatorparts.com/hd-...ement-kit.aspx