m73m95

Ok, update.

Turns out, I DO need a woodruff key. Even with the nut torqued tight, the pulley still spins on the shaft.

The belt seems to ride fine. I only ran it for about a 2 min, but it looks good.

I don't think it will be to hard to Dremel out a slot for the woodruff..... but I didn't think this install would be hard either LOL.

I would definatly stick with the Beck/Arnley alternator Stephen used in this install. He's right about there being a lot of different designs for the same alternator. Lesson learned.

I'll update again in a bit.

CarbonRevo

These last few posts make me so damn happy! Good to see some more photos. I will be completing this mod as well soon. After seeing how hard it was to fit my Vitesse MAF to my 2" K26 opening...I am NOT f*cking with the big stock altenator again! lol

m73m95

Last update.

The dremel tool is not a precision instrument, but it was good enough to grind a slot in the shaft of the Duralast alternator for the woodruff key.

Everything seems to be working fine now. 14 volts when running, gauge works, belt stayed on for the few min I tested it.

Good to go!

azbanks

I'm starting to do this project.

Black51

Ya this is great! I'm looking for this alternator now.

Dare

Coincidentally I’m in the midst of this project right now as well. Since this thread seems to be a nexus of info on the topic I’ll add my $0.02 here.

I’m doing things a little differently than the other posters. First off I decided I ought to know how to rebuild an alternator, so rather than buy a referb I went to the local pick-n-pull and snagged one off an actual 1997 Nissan Quest (total cost: $32). Turns out this alternator is part of a family of alternators that are used all over the place, and there are a zillion different cross-referenced part numbers from a variety of manufacturers. Mine is a Mitsubishi A3TA1091ZC. A little searching turned up the part numbers for various replacement parts:
I also wanted to replace the 5 groove pulley with a 6 groove that fit properly. The pulley from the Porsche alternator can be made to fit but you have to grind away part of the alternator frame. Alternatively you can put a shim behind the shaft to make it clear, but this moves the pulley further out of line with the crank pulley, which I wanted to avoid (more on this later). A little more searching turned up a 6-groove pulley that fits perfectly:
Total price for the alternator (including a can of Brakeclean to clean it): less than $80.

The next thing I’m looking to do differently is I want to mount the alternator without modifying the Porsche mount. I figure that way if the whole thing goes south I can swap back without any trouble. Taking a cue from one the 944 SPEC guys I’m looking to use a bracket to hold the alternator up away from the mount so it clears. The new alternator is so much smaller that I figure I can give back a little of the room to make this solution work. It’s not all together yet but it looks promising.

The final problem to solve was the alignment between the alternator pulley and the crank pulley. Unmodified, the alternator pulley is offset towards the front of the car by about 7mm, which is around 2 ribs. I solved this by grinding 7mm off of the top front mounting tab of the alternator. Conveniently this brings the bottom tab in line with the mount point for the A/C compressor, which is where I will mount the bracket. I plan on using washers between the mount and the rear tab to fill most of the gap caused by the grinding, and then adjusting the pressed-in collar to get the fit just right.

As I said, I'm not done with the project yet, but I'll post back with the results when I am.

jmj951

This is going to be a good writeup, and it was looking really promising for my needs right up to the point where you mentioned that you'll mount it on the A/C bracket. I'm looking for the writeup that makes this a 1/2 day job and lets me keep the A/C. Fortunately, my original alternator has been good to me and I've never had to get in there, so I can't tell what alternatives could make this a 1/2-day job.

Does it seem possible to have a very simple bracket fabricated for the top mounting point to make this a bolt-on (requiring one extra bolt, allowing for the wiring mods and drilling out the holes in the bottom tab for the factory bolt) with the 6-rib pulley from WAI global, that would allow the use of the original length belt? Something like the following:

Dare

I'm not planning on keeping my A/C, but I don't see why you couldn't. Just get a slightly longer bolt for the front A/C mounting point and pass it through the bracket holding the alternator. Alternatively I'm sure you could work out a way to bolt it to the original mounting point.

Definitely thought about that, and anyone with access to the right tools could do it. It could be as simple as two pieces of flat steel bent and seam welded together. Alas, I don't have the tools to do this. I also don't think its a half-day job to make it.

jmj951

Thanks Jay. The part of the bracket that mounts to the alternator will need to completely fill the gap between the tabs with solid material (a simple sleeve for the bolt could do), or the tabs on the alternator will break off. Definitely a lot of extra time needs to be invested to get this bracket right so that the original belt could be used. With the bracket in hand, I think the 1/2 day target is possible.

Dare

I was thinking you'd just use two separate bolts--one for each tab.

Now, who here has the ability to produce this thing?

eniac

I thought about fabbing up a new mount but the amount of effort and time required to do that would be quite a bit more than simply grinding down the factory piece. It just didn't seem worth it. My suggestion if you want to be cautious, is to just buy another used mount. Once the alternator is fit to the used piece, you then have a bolt on part.

Also the factory mount I ground down will still allow me to put the original alternator back on if I ever wanted...although I cannot think of one single reason why I would ever do that.

Voith

what is the difference in weight between original and this alternator?

Dare

I just weighed each of them (bathroom scale accuracy only):

eniac

That seems about accurate. I woulda guessed 3-4lbs difference. It does feel lighter when holding each in one hand however not shockingly lighter.

Update: The alt in my original post is still on my car and still working great. I havent had to touch it and this is about 40,000 miles later. It even held up to a 16 hour long road trip. Thank god for that E85 locations GPS map.

theedge

CEP makes a nice billet aluminum mount that works I think.