Slow but steady progress...electrical stuff (i hate it!)

[raygreenwood]

The trick to getting the alternator off without removeing the heater boxes...is to remove the long bracket that hooks to the cooling manifold first, the muffler generally, and a bit of teh rear sheet metal. Its not that bad.....just have to look carefully at it. Ray

[albert]

oh, deathbus, i do the job last 2 weeks on my 412 wagon 73 , and , i do only watt i explain before , i reemoove only the muffler ,alt. belt plus fan belt cover , not rubber fan air duck , 2 oil filler rubber tube, the small for gage tube and big for oil filler , ( i put new in the same time ) ( for the small tube i use spark plug wire insulator ) and i buy new for big tube from model type 3 ,, for my oppignion , the muffler gasket cost 5$ and the motor head 200.$ and for me i d,t, risk the head bolts and i do the job in one hrs ( remoove ) for reinstal same time,, ok in the vw books the suggestion is ,,remoove heather box that is very good wend you are sure , if the head bolts are not rust ,,, albert

[albert]

secon post , if you remoove the rear passenger weell , and the air tube from gaz heather to the box heather , you have , the startor and the alt. in your face very easy for to disconnect the électric wire (disconnect batery first ) same way for startor job very fast ,,albert

[DeathBus]

If you dont remove the rubber cooling duct it's almost impossible to get it back on the alternator completely and if its a little dry rotted, it will rip when putting it back on. Your decision I for one would rather be safe than sorry and take it off and replace it.

I will agree, not pulling the heater boxes is the easiest. I would much rather find out the things that need to be replaced on my "new" 412 that I have never worked on. When replacing the alternator on my white car, I wound up replacing all my 1/2 head exhaust studs, matching my exhaust flanges both at the heads and the muffler. This all took me about 4 or 5 hours, now I have the peace of mind that everything from my heads down is right. I just took the opportunity while doing my alternator, to do everything else. There is nothing wrong either way.

[albert]

no, death bus , i am 100% correct with that , on the 412 wagon it is not necessaire to remoove the big boots , only belt cover , and alt.belt and alt. cover plate , wend you remoove alt bolt the cover come in same time , you make attention wend you rem. alt. he have air duck boots for alt .geeve loos at the clip and push alt . by mufler direction ,, alb.

[DeathBus]

simple doing that with a dry rotted boot will cause it to tear. I AM 100% SURE OF THAT. Like I said do what you want, when you tear your boot trying to get the alternator back on, there ya go. Do it right, the 1st time and you wont have problems. Buy a new boot romove it with the alternator and have no worries, or drive around with rusted manifold bolts leaking exhaust and a torn alternator cooling boot.

Oh wait I have only owned 5 Type 4 powered vehicles, I have absolutly no clue of what I am speaking.

Would you rather spend 4 or 5 hours doing it right or 1 hour half assed? All I am saying is that when you dont know your vehicle even doing this 4 or 5 hour SIMPLE JOB will give you peace of mind.

[vwbill]

All I can say is "What a pain in the wrench" They must have designed the alternator very well so you shouldnt have to do that job but maybe once and that must have been when you should do the muffler and heat exchangers! That is one part of the the design that you will curse if you are broken down on the road with needing to replace the alt.! It's so funny how you start thinking you can get it out not too bad then you are in a minor mission,lol! Too bad it couldnt have been a top tin pull and reach thing! I guess it must really be that most of the time you will be doing that job and doing the engine so that is all done and you are set for the next 150K miles! Probably only go bad if they get hit by too much water when hot or something! My old 412 had 165K on it and the Alt was still good but the valves weren't,lol! But I drove it like a rallyracer!

[albert]

, your are ok , deathbus , for to do replacement or change all the rubber boots in the same job , i d,t know if some people before me,,on my 412 ,,,i am 3 horner ,, do some modification , but i save the time , the big air fan boots d,t, stop me for to remoove alt. only hard thing for to slide my hand for to geeve loos at the clip on the alt. vent boots , but for the 2 oil boots , i install new for to doo more safe job ,, the oil boots afther 3o years are tosted or have crack and he can geeve you bad idle plus oil leaking at hi spead on the hiway but for to finish ,,the alt. is at the bad place ,,albert

[DeathBus]

Yes sorry if I came across rather gruff, I was very tired when I wrote my last response. It will work both ways, which ever way is easiest for you go for it!

[albert]

no, no, offence that is only oppignion,only suggestion if you have problem for to remoove the clip on oil filler boots , you pass your hand by the hole by the back up light( you remoove completly the casing of light ) you can remoove the retainer clip by this way and wend i do my alt job , i install new srew clip on the boots , the fucking spring clip is hard to remoove wend you d,t have spécial tool for that , and you are correct wend you said, wend you make job you make for long time, and all the boots on vw is important , for vaccum , if it is good ok it is good , but if he have smal crack that geeve many problem , for me i was luckie , the big fan boots was good ,and altern. boots was good too and i save the time , plus for me wend i calculate the risk for to break the bolt on the head , i prefere to doo the job by easy way ,,,

[MGVWfan]

BTW, the alternator is a rather heavy-duty design. The only real trouble spots I can see are the bearings, and the diode lead insulation. The bearings are shielded, not sealed (due to lip seal materials available in the 70's that would work at the high max shaft speed of this design, and at the price Bosch was willing to pay), so any water that finds its way into the alternator will kill the bearings...sitting a long time in a carport or shed allows water in due to condensation, if nothing else. The grease is also getting very old by now, and it's probably turned to an oxidized, nasty crust. Also, the insulation material used on the diode flying leads crumbles to dust after many years, leading to shorts and a toasted stator . This is not so much a design defect as a materials defect common to all alternators with pressed-in diodes, since they are all from the 70's or earlier, and cheap, flexible, heat-resistant insulating sleeving wasn't available back then. The brushes seem to be well sized, and the forced air cooling from the coolest source available (air from the vehicle slipstream forced into the alternator by the engine fan) keeps the diodes and windings very cool. I'm betting you'll find worn-out brushes, if the vehicle's high-mileage (like 120Kmiles or more). If not, it's most likely a dead exciter diode trio (happens a lot on other alternator designs...not sure how frequently it happens on this design).