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burned out altenator, swap from an 88 to 89 serp belt.

darkshadow

darkshadow

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UPDATE AT BOTTOM.

Alternator seized and caught fire:eek1: (a little)on the highway, burning the belt off my 89 suburban. (serpentine)


questions are:

1: can I pull the pulley off my now cooked serp alt., and put it on my alt from my 88 burb V-belt? and will it bolt in the same? Both trucks are at different locations so I can't check.

and 2: Can I run a non-AC belt on my ac truck and bypass the ac, or is there an idler pulley in the non ac trucks?


this was the LAST thing I needed today, I have NO money so hopefully the alternators will work.
 
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I want to say that you can swap the belts and bypass the AC. I know that you can on a 2.8, whatever that's worth. I was thinking that SBC was designed that way as well, but don't quote me on it. Don't know about the alternator. I only have one truck with a serpentine, but it's a '91 BBC. So I don't know if I can use that as a comparison to my '88 350 v-belt motor. Probably wouldn't help you at all. But I can go look at each of them if you wish.
 
Could you tell If thy bold up the same?

belt is not a huge deal, either way, oh and the fire in the alt melted the wires too :doah:
 
serp alt is on drivers side, non serp alt is on passenger side, But I think that they are the same.
 
alright good, and the pulley should swap over right?


I just hope the alt from my old truck is still good, been sitting a year, but was just rebuilt.
 
OK update, I forgot my 88 had a narrow serp. belt for the alt.

there are 3 bolt holes, one on the back and two on the face, the two on the face or the older one are 180* from each other, and the newer one is off set 1/3'd or so more.

So rotating the case made the main hole and the one small hole on the back line up.

so we will see tomorrow if 2 out of 3 is enough to hold it in place.
 
darkshadow said:
OK update, I forgot my 88 had a narrow serp. belt for the alt.

there are 3 bolt holes, one on the back and two on the face, the two on the face or the older one are 180* from each other, and the newer one is off set 1/3'd or so more.

So rotating the case made the main hole and the one small hole on the back line up.

so we will see tomorrow if 2 out of 3 is enough to hold it in place.
Click to expand...
It should hold, short term, but the small fire will have weakened the pulley. They are only a few bucks, but I wouldn't want to run it longer than necessary.
 
the only thing that was burning was the plastic at the back of the alt not too bad, but enough to melt the plugin.
 
I see, so it was the bushing that wore out, and got hot. Ok, I thought you had the fire at the front, and that burned the belt off, forgot you said it siezed up.
 
oh yeah bearings are right melted and gone!

funny I think th PO had just put it on not log befor I bought it a year ago, still looked brand new, you know aside from the fire :D
 
UPDATE>


Ok this swap doesn't really work, but can be made to fit.


AS you can see here the bolt hole on the back of the case comes close but does not fit, this is because the front half of the case is really different.

P1010134.JPG



As the distance from the main thru bolt to the screw hole to holt the two halves together at slightly further apart on the older alt.


So late at night in the dark I was faced with two options, continue freaking out and burn down my truck and/or my pitiful excuse for a garage.


OR make it work, so I stifled my pyromania for a moment, and came up with this:

P1010132.JPG



It was frustrating from the metric thread on the bottom, to grinding it for clearance again and again, to not realizing I need it to have an offset, It is amazing I did not just burn the truck!

made it have an adjustment so I could take up a bit more slack.


P1010130.JPG



hooked it all up, not sure if the plugs match or not because my stock one was melted really good :doah:

so I used the one off my parts truck, and it had two wires, not sure what the brown one if for but since each had a pink/black one I thought that was a safe bet.

P1010135.JPG



Ran the truck today worked good, pulled the battery positive off and she was fine, so I guess sitting for over a year was fine on it.

All in all this is doable, the last hole could even be made to fit, but I did not ant to mod the truck brackets at all, in case this one failed and I ended up needing to buy a 89 one anyway.

So unless you are dirt poor like I am right now bouncing off your over draft limit, I would but one that fits.

but in the end it can be done :D
 
I consider those CS alternators to be junk. I'm not surprises for a fairly new rebuild to burn up right away. I replace one and few months later have it go out again. I changed another one in my cousin's car and ended up doing it again a year later. A lifetime warranty is your friend.
 
thay have a cs-144 based big alt kit for these serp setups. but mostly found on special needs vehicles ( ie ambulance/police/stuff like that. )

i am going to get one custom built at local alt/starter motor shop for 150 bucks . it will put out 200 amps at full load and 100 at idel.

look in your home town yellow pages and see who is out there. ya never know.
 
that one that is on there I had rebuilt by a shop for a great deal a few years back, 130amp, for 1/3d the cost of a new one.
 
You do have another option man. Take the guts out of the older unit, and put it all into the newer casing (assuming it didn't get melted by the fire)
 
front part of the case (the side that is different) got wrecked when the bearings fried the shaft burned thru the side of the hole. So it could not hold bearings. I did thing about that.
 
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