LT Texan

I haven't seen any threads on an upgrade to the Delco CS130 that is so popular as a replacement for the early years alternator.

I found the Delco worked great at moderate temps, but performance dropped drastically when hot. I've been using the AutoZone brand replacement alternator with a lifetime warranty.

I am not going to go through the rebuild process. I got that off You Tube.

The kit provides everything to upgrade and rebuild your alternator with a couple exceptions.

1. It is advertised that a larger rear bearing is included due to failure problems with the old one. Well, a larger bearing is not included. It includes the same size bearing as stock along with a new stock plastic insert to fit in the new Iceberg rear housing.

2. A new voltage regulator is not included.

(And yes, the heatsink paste is included, just hard to find in a capsule.)

I did not bother changing the bearings as the alternator is lightly used (and because I couldn't find my gear puller).

I found the hardest part of all was desoldering and removing the old rectifiers and brushes from the old voltage regulator so the VR could be reused. Honestly, would not want to do this again. The connection is clamped and soldered. I'd consider just buying the alternator assembled and not bother with having to do this.

You can see the connections circled in the below picture. This is trial assembled before I soldered it.


Here's the new stator compared to the old. What's the difference? Beats me.


I forgot to take a shot of the heatsink smeared on the rectifiers. But you can see it oozing out after assembly - looks like regular old copper anti-seize. Well done. And crimp those wires and connectors with some heavy needle nose pliers and solder. Oh, and this is the money shot of the patent pending fins.


Here is the heatsink on the old housing. Pretty wimpy.


Oh, buy a 200 watt soldering iron. (The battle scar was from removing those damn connections from the VR.)


I'll slap it in tomorrow and see how it works.

LT Texan

Well that is irritating. Warmed her up, and with the lights, aircon, radio and radiator fan running the volts were right down in the warning of the volt gauge.

Read 14.6V at the alternator when I first started her up. That was at idle.

I guess the next step is to measure the volts at the alternator with a full load and rev'd to 3,000rpm.

If the volts are low, I'll pull it and have an alternator shop do a load test.

If it doesn't put out as advertised......

LT Texan

The wiring is suspect, but I expected the alternator to do better too.

Everything was nice and hot. The radiator fan was going pretty much full blast (30 or 40 amps and connected from the battery cable at the starter).

I loaded up by turning on the headlights, fog lights, a/c on full and radio.

Here is what I got at idle (800rpms) and at 2,000rpm measured at the alternator, jump post, CE Panel and what the gauge read:

checkmate1996

i never experienced a heat problem with mine however did you have proper cooling on the unit?

LT Texan

There is no shroud for cooling on the Delco swap.

I am not impressed with the Iceberg kit's performance. I really see no improvement from the Delco rebuild purchased from Autozone.

I can't recommend it.

The Forgotten On

There is this to cool the alternator from the site that sells those "upgrades".

https://alternatorparts.com/remote-a...ng-system.html

It should allow the mounting of the air temp sensor for the later cars as well. I just don't know how it will fare clearing the exhaust manifolds.