06-15-2011, 01:51 PM
|
|
CC Member
|
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Driftwood,
TX
Cobra Make, Engine: Contemporary Cobra, 427 side oiler
Posts: 1,850
|
|
Not Ranked
Quote:
Originally Posted by vettestr
The Lincoln/Taurus 2 speed fan and posts by Elmariachi helped push me over the goal line. It does pull a few amps on high speed but I had plenty of power to spin the alternator after I kept her from overheating
|
Sidebar story on that:
My Mexican reman'd 100 amp 1-wire alternator resisted that amp-sucking fan since day one (late 2009). The guy that rebuilt it warned me the 3G old-style alternator would maybe make it a year pushing that fan in Houston heat. So we are out in the God-forsaken desert expanse of West Texas this last April for the Big Bend Open Road Race and sure enough, voltmeter starts showing 9 volts.  I called el Jefe and told him to FedEx me another. Alternator showed up the night before the race. The housing was clocked wrong so we used the old one to confirm we could disassemble and re-clock without issues. In the process, the brushes and guts fell out of the old one onto the floor of the trailer, serving as a stern warning. No biggie. But in the process of slightly separating the new one to rotate the housing, I pulled too hard and it came apart. Houston, we have a problem: Springs and bits and pieces of brushes everywhere.
My HCC buds helped me keep my cool long enough to figure out that we had a good top brush from the old alternator and a good bottom brush from the new one. Perfect. But how the hell do you keep the spring-loaded brushes in place inside the holder so you can re-stab the aramature? (Visualize heads and asses being thoroughly scratched while sucking on many cold beers.) Then the FE gods arrived. Two guys I didn't even know from Waco, TX running a Cobra and steeped in all things Ford and FE walked up and said "Oh yea, you gotta have a paperclip for that." "A paperclip?" Yep. Fifteen minutes later it was all back together, on the car and pumping 14+ volts. Now how the hell lucky is THAT? 10PM in the parking lot the night before the race, dazed and confused, about to eat $2500 in expenses and miss the race, then a guy with the right answers walks up.
Morale of the story: Get a big frigging alternator. And thanks to Ted Eaton and Jody Orsag for bailing my Okie butt out of a jam.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Last edited by elmariachi; 06-15-2011 at 01:58 PM..
|
Threaded Mode
