oreilly's alternator up in smoke.....

[BCOWANWHEELS]

well i installed a new reman ( life time warranty ) alternator on my truck. 2 1/2 weeks go by then this mornning i went to go to the shop and when i cranked the engine the belts squeeled. i thought those are double belts, brand new. so i thought i,d tighten em up when i get to shop. well about 1 mile frm home my alt. gauge pegs out to max charge then i smelled something. so i hit the side of the road and opened the hood and the front of the alt. was white as snow and had smoke comming from it. i unpluged the alt. & drove on the the shop, pulled it off and took it back to oreilly's. they put it on the test machine and it barely started to run and a big RED light came on and said DEFECTIVE . SO HE GAVE ME A NEW alt. guess eveybody has bad parts from time to time. no back on with it. sure hope it didnt hurt my gauge as it sure pegged it had and fast.
bob

[oldblue1968chevy]

good thing nothing else burnt up...and ya got it for free so all u lost was your time and feeling dumb on the side of the road lol so your good now right?

[Sinister]

If your running an external voltage regulator might want to check it as well.

[leddzepp]

Lifetime warranty....means you will be exchanging it about every three months for the rest of your life. I got sick of playing that game. So I had a local shop rebuild mine in-house. Converted it to a 1-wire, also added a few more windings making it 100 amps. That was over 4 yrs ago, and no problems since.

[BCOWANWHEELS]

well i hope so. i had the doors open for 4-6 hrs the day before as i had to change out the fuel sending unit so i just took the seat out, then decided to clean everything up inside the cab while seat was out. thought the alt. might charge for a while as the battery had a drain on it for that period of time. glad battery was a little low now........
I,am installing the second new alt in a minute or sow.

[BCOWANWHEELS]

I thought about the ext. voltage reg. I was going to buy one but when the alt. tested bad i thought a new one would cure it. gonna keep a good close eye on it. almost always when you go to change out the volt reg. when you go to remve the factory mounting bolts those rubber mounting pads go bad. so I called tim christian and he has me a set saved. but he's in charlotte and the auto fair till first of the week.

[71 super]

Are you needing the well nuts to hold the regulator on? If so go to Lowes and in the hardware section get three #10 well nuts, they are about $1.20 each.

[westofb]

Originally Posted by leddzepp

Lifetime warranty....means you will be exchanging it about every three months for the rest of your life. I got sick of playing that game. So I had a local shop rebuild mine in-house. Converted it to a 1-wire, also added a few more windings making it 100 amps. That was over 4 yrs ago, and no problems since.

Lifetime warranty at O' Ripme's is on the orginal unit you purchased...I think the second one is like a year warranty, the 3rd 90 days, the 4th no warranty...I worked as a mechanic for several years and learned that there electrical products suck. They have good prices but if you are re-replacing the same part over and over is it really worth it?

[leddzepp]

Originally Posted by westofb

Lifetime warranty at O' Ripme's is on the orginal unit you purchased...I think the second one is like a year warranty, the 3rd 90 days, the 4th no warranty...I worked as a mechanic for several years and learned that there electrical products suck. They have good prices but if you are re-replacing the same part over and over is it really worth it?

My point exactly. Autozone's lifetime warranty is unlimited (ask me how I know). So is the number of times you will have to change it out.

[BCOWANWHEELS]

well it got my voltage regulator

[Lugnut64052]

Yeah, their rebuilt alternators do suck, but so do most of the other parts chains reman stuff too (maybe a little less so).

They do carry a line of brand new manufacture alternators and starters that are pretty good though. Again, most of the other chain parts stores can get new manufacture stuff too, and it's all pretty good.

. . . which is what I started doing. I don't mess with any reman electrical stuff anymore. I get new stuff or have it built by an electrical shop.