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Ron Stygar Carl Buckland Dale Beuning Forums Help
From digest.v7.n572 Tue Nov 11 16:21:06 1997 Greetings, I have found, to my surprise, the BMW dealer to have the best prices on quality parts (25% off list). That is until now. My alternator went out the other day. Inspection and disassembly revealed bad brushes and bearings. The regulator was still regulating and the diodes were still semiconducting. My FLAPS wanted $315 for a rebuilt, $51 for the regulator which also houses the brushes, and could not get bearings. The dealer wanted $66 for the regulator, and over $20 for each bearing. That's still over $100 to rebuild it myself! As I was contemplating what to do, I decided to remove the bearings. Were they ever stuck! My gear puller method was totally useless. I decided to take it to Rochester Auto and Diesel Electric where they rebuild these professionally. They were great. They worked on it while I waited (the owner said the part I brought in would have ended up in the core barrel otherwise). They replaced both bearings for $21, turned the slip rings for $5, and sold me a new regulator for $15. So now I have a rebuilt alternator for $46.68 including tax. It looked like the original alternator that had never been worked on before. Therefore I should now have another 175K mi of life in the rebuilt alternator.
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