air cooled dad Posted February 11, 2019 Report Posted February 11, 2019 Had an overhauled alternator installed in my plane during the last annual. Failed during climbout the other day. Pulled the brushes out and found the broken wire as seen in the picture. My mechanic states he has had more issues with overhauled parts over the last few years and encourages owners to just purchase new if they can. Have others here noticed less than desirable results with purchasing overhauled components vs new? The good news is this was an easy fix. Plus we didn’t have to remove the lower cowl and remove the alternator. 1975 F aerotech al-y 8520 60amp 1 Quote
flight2000 Posted February 11, 2019 Report Posted February 11, 2019 (edited) Not really. I've had both fail including governors (overhauled and then new...), fuel pumps, mags, etc. It's been a crap shoot for me as to which may or may not fail sooner. I've been able to recoup the cost of a newly failed components, but the down time still stinks... If a new part is close enough in price to the overhauled, I'll just buy new and drive on. Cheers, Brian Edited February 11, 2019 by flight2000 1 Quote
kortopates Posted February 11, 2019 Report Posted February 11, 2019 There is an unavoidable amount of infant mortality with new parts whether installed into new appliances or overhauled ones. The fact is I can overhaul an alternator for about 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of new; even replacing a rotor. So that’s a no brained for me. But with a vacuum pump there is very little difference in cost between new and overhaul.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 Quote
kmyfm20s Posted February 11, 2019 Report Posted February 11, 2019 I just replaced mine after it failed. I went with new because I saved 9 lbs off the nose of my plane. I kept the old one and will have it overhauled and keep it in the hangar next to the extra magnetos and spark plugs. Those are the only things that have failed and kept me grounded for a period of time and want to have handy. Quote
Yetti Posted February 12, 2019 Report Posted February 12, 2019 There was just a thread on this with instructions on how to replace the brushes with the alt still on the plane. @M20Doc Also had the numbers for the brushes. @jetdriven had the numbers for the replacement diodes. They can be field overhauled for $60 in parts. Quote
carusoam Posted February 12, 2019 Report Posted February 12, 2019 A broken wire connector? Was that replaced with the OH? The wires look a bit stressed the way they are placed there... a bit of extra stress on the low cost connectors... Its hot, and the vibration is pretty high. See if you can get a better look at how the wires are supposed to go between those two points... Doing it the same way looks like the next connector is going to see the same crazy stress... want to ask Clarence? Best regards, -a- Quote
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