Breather

I had one breather with a bad spring bar... the little bar that catches on the lip of the valve cover when you screw the breather on. So I'd ordered a couple new ones from CPR. I painted them black, as they come bare, but only one came out decent. I'll need to sand and respray the other. Meanwhile I attached the decal to the good one and stuck it on.

Then I figured it was time to replace the old alternator I had used from the '49er when I upgraded that car to a higher amp unit. Actually not sure if I had purchased that alternator new or it came off one of the '73 Cadillacs. Either way, it was having issues... not completely turning off the dash light, charging high then cutting back above a certain RPM, general flakiness. Fresh rebuilt AC Delco unit from RockAuto fixed all the above.

Drove the car over to Pep Boys to buy some coolant and topped off the overflow tank. That was it for today!

Oh... and the driver's wing vent motor has decided to start working again, all by itself. Makes me happy!

Alternator Upgrade - Wrapup

Finished off the details of the cover plates in the engine bay and cabin. Ordered an LED 1156 bulb to put in the underhood emergency light. Alternator is working great! Have a little noise in the radio when the engine is running. Will need to see about adding a noise filter. [Found one on eBay and ordered it.]

Alternator Upgrade - Electrical

More alternator work. I have the ballast resistor (25 ohm, 25 watt) in parallel with the alt light now, the light is mounted under the lip of the dash near the ignition switch. I also wired up the under-hood emergency light and moved the wiring of the power window circuit to the back of the ammeter like the factory did it. There are a few items to button up. I have to put the two metal plates back on the firewall, inside and out. Otherwise that about does it. I ordered a spare alternator because this one came out of the '49 Cadillac and it has been acting a little flaky until it warms up. Better to have one on hand.

Alternator Upgrade - Electrical

Wires are run, test fired with an added panel light as exciter and it works but I need to rev the engine a bit to get it to start charging and turn the light out. Not sure why.

Addendum: Two issues. One, not enough ballast from the miniature bulb. Need a resistor. Two, alt may not be in top shape since it was run on the '49er for some time. Added bonus, maybe testing with the trickler charger on is a bad idea? D'oh!

Alternator Upgrade - Mechanical

Fabricated the mounting bracket from a universal one and have the alternator physically mounted on the engine. Nothing is wired up yet but I used the original belt and it looks like it lines up perfectly.

I did an small extention to the factory bracket without any cutting or welding so it's reversible.

Alternator Upgrade

I had begun to investigate converting to an alternator some weeks back and gathered some brackets, wiring and diode setup for when the time came. I started working on it seriously today. The universal bracket looks like it will work the best, with some modification. It seems it will bolt onto the intake manifold in the same location as the original generator bracket. However I will need to raise it up a bit using some spacers. I had been planning on it needing a longer belt if I were to bolt the universal bracket to the old bracket instead of directly to the manifold, but now it looks like the same or a slightly shorter belt will be needed.