The fallout from the dead 560SL battery in Missoula has so far been a cleaning and gluing together of the battery box and lid, which were well shattered by ham-handed past battery work. But yesterday I finally got to pull the alternator, and one brush was notably short, and arcing had chewed its slip ring a bit.
When spinning the alternator by hand it sounds 'dry', I'd say that it really could use a new bearing or two. Checking my records I find I've done this before, three years ago on the 190D, and the place to take the alternator is _Spokane Auto Electric & Repair_. They carry everything, and can turn slip rings too. I just need to take it apart and re-assemble it. Not an issue. Step one: use a Sharpie to mark the phasing of the two housings. As before, I then put two screwdrivers into the fan and set them against bolts through the alternator mounting holes. A 22mm box-end wrench went over the nut, and then a hammer striking the wrench removed the nut easily. (Inertia, not so much force on the fan, was the counterforce.) The pulley, fan, and all the spacers just drop off the front then. I strung them on a piece of wire to keep them in order. A hammer and a screwdriver removed the shaft key. Removal of the fan exposed the four screws that held the body together, those came out easily enough. (Don't slip and bugger the screw slots, or you'll really have a problem!) A brass hammer tapped around the rear housing caused it to drop away from the front housing and rotor, the rear bearing stayed with the rotor. The rear bearing was _very_ dry, it's close to failure. Most of the grease appears to have worked out of both bearings. I removed the four little screws that released the front bearing clamping plate, and with the nut on the shaft the brass hammer drove the front bearing out of the front housing. Checking the tool box I found a recently-acquired New Britain puller (50 cents at a garage sale) that is a _perfect_ fit to the rear bearing. It clipped over it and with a twist and a little pop it came right off the shaft, the flat end of the puller's bolt slipped perfectly through the bearing. (It was _sweet_, I love using good tools!) The front bearing is the hard one, but I have found that I can use a clamp-together flat plate bearing puller in conjunction with a 2-jaw puller to pull them off their shafts. I kept the front nut half-on the shaft in order to constrain the point of the 2-jaw puller. It took quite a bit of force, but the bearing pulled off pretty easily, and the procedure didn't seem to deform the bearing clamping plate too much. Disassembly complete; it didn't even take very long. I put the rotor, bearings, and brush pack into a box in the trunk of the car. -- Jim _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
