My 4Runner's alternator started giving me problems a few weeks back. It started as the battery light coming on the dash intermittently to a steady display a few days ago. I don't like the idea of trading in an OEM piece of equipment for a cheap parts store replacement so I started looking around for solutions on youtube and 4runner specific forums. To my surprise there's a $20 fix for the original alternator. I ordered a new brush holder and installed it today. Super easy. In fact the worse part was putting the alternator back in the vehicle and trying to get the pivot bolt holes lined up. I probably spent about an hour on the job which included cleaning up the alternator. I'm assuming the brushes were original so that would make them 20 years old. Here's what the old brushes looked like vs new. I forgot to take a pic of the new part so I've attached a stock photo.
I've replace Ford and Chrysler brushes. The Chrysler's are pretty simple, don't even need to disassemble. The Ford requires disassembly, but not too bad overall. I say Ford and Chrysler, but they were installed on Cessna and Piper aircraft. You think a Ford alternator is expensive when on a Ford, you can quadruple it easily when it is wearing a Cessna badge !
Nice job OP. bushpilot, My Dad had a Piper Cub J3 I believe. He bought it wrecked and rebuilt it, this was in around 1945. He soloed and received his license after 8 hours. I have the original propeller, flight instruction manual and blueprints for the entire plane it was all wood structure covered in fabric. The flight manual is only maybe 50 pages, actually comical to todays standard. There are cartoons to show all the different flight rules. I will need to take some pics and post them here in a new thread.
That will be cool. Many of the older manuals have cartoons in them, some of them a little bit rated PG.
I gave up rebuilding alternators and starters a number of years ago when cheap Chinese parts were all i could find, might be better stuff now
That’s good info. I’ve replaced many alternators, but never thought to repair one. I suppose the “rebuilt” ones I buy are just new brushes and regulator. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good point. In all the years I’ve been driving and fixing cars I’ve never actually had the bearings in an alternator be the cause for replacement. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've replaced them on alternators that I rebuilt...bearings sounded terrible! The last one was in an F250 that was very obviously someone's "muddin truck"
