Thread: Alternator Failure?

Thank you everyone.

Your help has been just what i needed to know to know what is needed ;-)

I have ordered the alternator through Ashdown Ingram and as such it will be a OEX unit.

I will put it in tomorrow night or Saturday morning.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Carlos

So,

Overnighted the alternator from Ashdown Ingram from Perth.

Went about the removal and replacement. I did not remove any hoses only two bolt/screws that were holding the coolant pipe that passes in front of the alternator. This gave enough room to wiggle the alternator past. I did have to turn the viscous fan bolt clockwise too. Anyhow, I try to put the belt back on and bam-bow. Six rib places not eight. Lucky I thought to tackle the job tonight so I can see wether I can swap the pulleys over somewhere tomorrow morning. Very disappointed indeed!

Also the alternator casting is not as neatly done as the denso and is rated at 150 Amps not 180 Amps as described somewhere here....
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It looks like you were wise enough to look at the pulley before you installed the alternator. Most end up wondering why what was a perfectly good belt is later in tatters. In some cases, by the time they notice, the removed alternator has been sent back.

Normally the pulleys are just swapped and problem solved.

On my 2005 LR3, the alternator is rated at 150 amps and I think that is what most 3's have.

I think the D4 alternator is now 180 amps, probably what the alternator on the 3 should have been.

yeah,

The pulley changed right over and all was sweet. Charged the battery with a 25 amp charger and it bought it back from the dead.

The only problem now is that every few days the battery warning light comes on for less then a minute and today it came on three times and only when beginning to accelerate.

Could something be cooked?

Carlos

The odds are all is good except that the battery state of charge is still low.

The electrical system computers have some sort of emissions related accessory low power cut off cycle feature.

As such, you can never really trust what the regulator and the engine computer is telling each other. Once upon a time, regulators told the alternator what to do based on battery voltage and some would even instruct the engine to speed up a bit at idle; now the engine computer tells components such as heated seats, radio amplifiers etc to shut down or cycle, and tells the regulator to minimize alternator output and suck instead from the battery. What this effectively means is the battery never gets fully charged no matter how much you drive.

As such, at least twice a year, for about a week at a time, every night I connect my battery, (actually both battery's), to my CTEK charger.

It seems to take a week of nightly charges on each battery to get them back up to where the CTEK is happy.

In other words, while there might be something wrong, first just try a week of battery charging at a low charge rate.

So your saying that it might be related to a low battery charge?

I thought it meant there is a fault with the charging system?

We have found that the battery does start the car slower and slower over time - 1 year. Sounds like the top up charge is a good way to go though.