Where did you buy your (good) alternator?

[phatdoughnut]

Everything's on hold until I get a chance to look at it in a few days. It started up just fine and I made it home just fine. I didn't really notice the lights getting dim, but who knows. (And I won't be driving it to work again until fixed ...)

At first the light didn't come on and then after about 5-10 minutes it was on.

So, the pattern was just like when I went to work, only it came on sooner on the way home. Hmm ...

I'd read in one of the threads here that the system expects the alternator to charge at certain rate or charge up the battery in a certain amount of time, and if that doesn't happen, the light goes on. If I understood that correctly that might explain why the light just didn't come on immediately upon startup?

I'd love it to just be brushes, assuming it's a low-voltage situation; not sure how to test for that without disassembling it and taking a peek at them unfortunately. Meantime I'll go back and re-read the batt/alt. Sticky here.

You get a volt meter and test it etheir on the wires coming out of the alt or on the battery... simple as that... if its low reading replace the brushes, if its dead and your car wont start. replace the brushes and if that doesnt work then buy a new one. Brushes are cheap.

Ther are called brushes, but they dont look like brushes, more like a metal key, square on one side and concaved(cresent moon) on the other side)

[deckeda]

You get a volt meter and test it etheir on the wires coming out of the alt or on the battery... simple as that... if its low reading replace the brushes, if its dead and your car wont start. replace the brushes and if that doesnt work then buy a new one. Brushes are cheap.

Ther are called brushes, but they dont look like brushes, more like a metal key, square on one side and concaved(cresent moon) on the other side)

Yep, I'll do it tomorrow. Soon as I locate my friggin' meter LOL. And I'm familiar with how brushes look.

Just to clarify, and maybe this isn't a fair assumption --- but low voltage is probably not the rectifier and high voltage is nothing but the rectifier?

In other words, baring anything catastrophic with the windings (highly unlikely, but you never know) or connections what else besides the rectifier and brushes can influence how much voltage comes out?

[phatdoughnut]

I was just stating how the brushes looked so other peps knew what we were talking about.

I dont know what else, if by rectifier you mean voltage regulator. Usually its the voltage regulator is bad if it reads higher than normal conditions(i believe 14.5 is normal anything higher is bad.) I think mine was reading something like 10-11volts. One of the brushes was totally wore down and the other was 3/4s good.. it was weird.

[deckeda]

I put a meter on the battery: 12.22v regardless of engine RPM, and the charging light was on immediately this time.

The national auto parts chains near me don't carry brushes, at least not online. Googling did find some, but they were like $24-$28. That's some serious scratch.

[TypeG]

mine did the same thing yours is doing. i do regret not changing the brushes.

be careful, it will probably say it's had enough soon. later.

[phatdoughnut]

You didnt ask at your local stores where a good place to get them is? there is a place in our town(semi small) that has this alternator type shop, i can run over there and see if they have any and priority mail them out to you first thing monday? I mean as long as they are a reasonable price.

[deckeda]

My first internet searches happened tonight, so no, I haven't called them yet. Tomorrow, will do.

That's an incredible offer --- but lemme try locally first. And I have a CD5 too, so the CB7 can "sit a spell", as they say down here.

Nonetheless I'd be curious what that place would charge for them, if you wouldn't mind calling them?

If no one has it here within reason I'll give you a shout. Right now I'm hoping for somewhere between the $8 or so you paid and the $25 or so I've found online.

(This whole thing is goofy. Last week I bought an OEM alternator with only 75,xxx mi on it via eBay, it's almost here, but now that I know about the brushes I'm on a quest to tear the old one apart and keep using it LOL.) If I can do this there'll be a DIY with purty pictures.

[deckeda]

If there are small shops in my area that deal with this sort of thing I don't know about them and neither do the biggies.

I called AutoZone, Advance Auto, O'Reilly and NAPA. No go. The big chains are in the business of selling their remanufactured stuff that people can just slap on, not repair parts.

I understand that, however it doesn't help me ... phatdoughnut let me know if you find out anything?

[phatdoughnut]

ill let you know for shizzle

[MangoMechaniX]

... The(y) are called brushes, but they dont look like brushes, more like a metal key, square on one side and concaved(cresent moon) on the other side)

They used to look like brushes, that is how they got their names. When I look for these things, I end up calling the big shops that do the rebuilds locally. They of course have them, and some will sell to the public, some only keep them for in-house rebuilds. Phone them and ask. Last time I dealt with one of these shops, the guy was really nice. I paid $18 for parts and he said his shop would charge $125 for the rebuild I was DIY. So I saved $107.

[phatdoughnut]

Okay my bad, i just thought it was one of those weird names people give to something that isnt even look like the description.

[mrvinyl33]

Is #5 here, just for the part that holdes the brushes, or does this also include them?

[deckeda]

Update!

New brushes in! Here's a pic: http://www.cb7tuner.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=55413

As I type this, the alternator isn't yet back in but it tested fine at the auto parts store, so all is good.

[mrvinyl33]

Just saw your other link. So the brush set is not an OEM part that can be orderd from the dealer, like most of the other parts on the alternator?

[owequitit]

It is good to know that you got it fixed, and it seems to be simple.

Just some FYI stuff that I thought you might be interested in.

1) Honda's parts are remanufactured, but they replace everything that isn't in brand new spec with new parts that are. They also replace them using the same parts that it was built with in the first place, IE, no quality degradation.

2) All OEM reman Honda parts come with a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty if installed by a dealer. You could probably con them into supporting the warranty any way though.

3) If you are experiencing an under or overvoltage situation, a common culprit would be the voltage regulator.

The recitifier simply takes the AC current produced by the alternator and turns it into DC current for the car. Typically, they are not a common failure point.

4) The ELD in the charging system is designed to see certain parameters. If it does not, then the light comes on. I am not sure the exact conditions off the top of my head, but I can look if you want me to.