How to split and re-clock a Ford 100 amp alternator

[The Warden]

Hello!

While spending some quality time at towcat's shop yesterday evening, Calvin was kind
enough to give Justin (SparkandFire) and myself a quick lesson oh how to split and re-clock
an alternator. This is useful if you want to relocate the terminals for easier servicing, or if
you want to re-grease the bearing or want to access the alternator internals for any other
reason. I happened to have my camera with me, so I took some pics and wanted to put this
all together in case it may help someone someday.

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Here's the alternator before it's been molested with. If this alternator were to be mounted
on an engine, the terminals would end up on the driver's side of the alternator, almost touching
the upper radiator hose. Quite the PITA to get at, if you ask me!

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First step's pretty simple...remove the four case bolts holding the two case halves together.

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Second step's to physically separate the case. A screwdriver will do the job well. When
you do so, be sure that the outer winding stays on the back half! You'll see why in the
next picture.

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If you accidentally pry the outer winding out with the front half of the case, you'll likely
break these soldered connections and will need to redo them!

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The two halves separated. Now, it's just a matter of orienting the front the way you want
and bolting it back together, right?

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Not quite! The contact brushes, which ride on the shaft that came out with the front
piece, are now dangling free. Obviously, you'll need to get these back into the proper
position before you can get the shaft back into the rear half. First step to remedy this is
to remove the two bolts you see on either side of the brush assembly...

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...so that you can pull the assembly out like this.

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Next step's to take a paper clip and bend it straight. There's a hole in between the two
contact brushes; you'll want to push the first brush back into position, then put the paper
clip in the hole, and then put the other brush in position and push the paper clip all the
way in. This way, the paper clip's holding the contact brushes from popping back out.
Note that there's a hole going through the back of the case right by the brush assembly;
you'll want to slide the other end of the paper clip into this hole when you put the
assembly back in...

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...like this.

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Next step's to tighten the bolts holding the contact brush assembly down...the main thing
to keep in mind is that these bolts are going into aluminum, so don't overtighten them!!

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NOW you can put the two pieces back together! A bit of grease in the rear bearing would
be advised if it doesn't look to be fairly well-greased already. As to how to orient the front
case, it's really a matter of personal preference....pick whichever side's going to be
easiest to access the terminals. I imagine that either orienting it directly up (as is being
done in this picture) or towards the passenger's side would be ideal, but that's your call.

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Then, put the four case bolts back in place. You can use the case bolts to help suck the
two pieces together, but again, they're going into aluminum, so don't overtorque them!
There should be some gap even when everything's tightened down.

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Lastly, pull the paper clip out of the hole in the back, so that the contact brushes can
ride properly on the shaft. Once you've done that, spin the alternator to make sure the
shaft moves freely, and then install it on the truck!

Again, primary credit on this goes to towcat who took the time to show us how to do it...
I just took pictures and put the lesson into words

Hope this helps

 

[icanfixall]

Great pictures and an even better lesson. Makes you want to go out and clock an alternater just to do it... We need more of this kind of teaching in the archives. Seeing and reading the whys and how tos makes easy understanding of everything.... Thanks....

 

[gandalf]

Good write-up, Tim. I'll bookmark this one for future reference.

Calvin, thanks once again for sharing your knowledge.

 

[SparkandFire]

Nicely done!

 

[Agnem]

Awsome! INSTANT tech article! Thank you VERY much. Boy, I sure could have used this when I changed the alternator on the Scarlet Moose. The terminals DO ride very close to the upper radiator hose due to this being the "universal" style alternator. Excellent Job. Thanks to Towcat and The Warden for this excellent article.