Bank Holiday woes

[ChrisM]

I was hapilly driving into Northumberland this afternoon, (happily until we hit the traffic on the A1 at Morpeth!) Cooling seemed fine, but I heard a new noise, a grinding noise, but only above about 2500 revs. Not good news, I thought, so found somewhere to pull in. Upon opening the bonnet everything seemed ok, but as the engine was only ticking over that was as expected. I gently increased the revs and the noise appeared alright, along with sparks and flying shards of metal!! It appears the alternator bearing has given up and it now has movement along its axis and the fan blades are catching on the housing. :banghead:

I was tempted to try and remove the alternator from the loop and drive home without it, but of course the water pump requires the belt! Decided that the AA would take until the next bank holiday to appear so drove home very gingerly, keeping the revs down. Car is now in the garage awaiting Basil Fawlty treatment. :rolleyes:

Anyways, long story short - does anyone have a spare, working alternator that will fit a 1.3 Maestro!? Beer tokens waiting :D

[Tram2468]

Hi ChrisM,
If its the same one as on a Montego 2.0 DLX turbo and you can manage a drive to Darlington you can have one of my spares - looks like a reasonably new recon one. Give me a bell on 01325 481564
Timothy

[ChrisM]

Hi Timothy, thanks for the offer - I'm not sure if it is the same, can anyone else shed any light?

[Peter J]

I believe it is a Lucas A127 (55amp) alternator, which fits many other vehicles like Land Rover and JCB.
If you search under the name of the Alternator rather than the car you usually find them, and reconditioning parts like bearings, on ebay.

[Tram2468]

Hi
If PeterJ is right then according to Haynes the ones I have are Lucas A127/65's which means that they have a larger electrical output ie 65 amps to your 55amp one.
Don't know what effect that will have except to charge up the battery quicker!
Timothy

[ChrisM]

Hmm... the Haynes book of lies mentions A133, but I suspect that is in reference to the 1.6 model. Would using a 65 amp in place of a 55 amp have any dire effects or will it be a straight forward swap? Got the old one off this evening, the most difficult part about the job was getting it out of the engine bay around all the pipes and wires after releasing all the bolts!

[E_T_V]

Straight forward enough swap. No dire consequences. The police spec ones came with the 65amp alt as standard.
You may need to rotate the housing if it looks different to the old one but this is simple enough. The type 127 came in lots of different versions from 35amp to 75amp. The only other thing you may need to swap is the pulley from the original if it is a different size.

[ChrisM]

Big thanks to Mick (MG Maestro Vans) for supplying me with an alternator. Fitted it in less than 20 minutes, about half the time it took to get the old one off! Pumping 14V out and makes the car sound a hell of a lot healthier!