Dwayne88IROC

I had problems starting my car after a few runs on the dyno. The symptoms were the motor turned over slow like a dead battery.
With the battery on the charger it was reading 12.1-12.5 volts. We load tested the battery and it read in the ok zone of the dial on the load tester. We talked about the starter creating too much load when hot and perhaps the battery had a bad cell.
After we pushed the car off the dyno and finally got it started my alt gauge was reading in the red on the way home.
I swapped out the Costco Interstate 800 CCA battery that I bought back in August 2017 and after install the alt gauge crept back to 13 volts but also fluctuated slightly. After 3 minutes of idling and watching the volt gauge i checking under the hood and touched the alternator and it was very hot (like way too hot for that short of an idle time) and i listened closer and noticed a different sound coming from the alternator.
So now I'm fixing the chrome Powermaster 140 amp alt. I have a call into the tech support at Power master hoping I can get this one fixed and save a $100 to go towards a new mini starter.

Does it look burnt?

6998poncho

Is that a CS130 or CS144 design alt.? Hard to tell. Looks to me like a bearing is shot and maybe the heat cooked the diode trio somewhat. The stock CS130 has a heat sensing circuit that varies the voltage. How ya doin' Dwayne?

Dwayne88IROC

Hi Rich,
I'm doing great and still have the Central Coast Street Machines sticker on my car. It's faded as much as that club haha. Is that club still around?
My alt is a CS130 and that makes since if the heat sensing circuit is varying the voltage. The bearing seems fine and spins freely with no grinding sounds or restrictions. It should not have heated up as fast as it did so perhaps there is something else making heat in the alt that is triggering the volt variance.
It's off to PowerMaster to get evaluated with the hope of getting it fixed and save few bucks.

6998poncho

Hi Dwayne, As far as car events go, the only things I see happening are the ones Dan L. posts. I think there are Fri. & Sat. GTG's in AG or Pismo, but I'm not sure.
I wanted to mention my 3rd gen, which is actually my '89 Chev pickup. This site is always helpful for tuning, parts, etc. Five years ago when I swapped my spare roller-cammed 350 in to my truck I also used the Impala/ Cadillac accessory brackets for the AC and alt. I used the CS144 alt. in place of the stock brackets and CS130 the truck came with. I had to use Camaro pulleys to get the WP and crank to line up with the AC and alt.

W.E.G.

That bearing is toast.

Looks like it got so hot it even disintegrated the brushes and started puking brush-material out the back of the alternator, along with the bits of metal and grease from the sealed bearing.

Perished alternator.

6998poncho

I wouldn't disagree with you. That's the impression I had when Dwayne posted that pic. I've rebuilt a few alts. in my time and they're pretty easy as long as you have access to spare parts like brushes and diode trios. I think he's getting it fixed and be back on the road in no time.