Replacing Festiva alternator; sources, upgrades, etc?

[KJ4YXY]

Have you ever thought of getting it rebuilt built by somebody?
By like a local specialist? I understand that they will use better parts than those refurbished (unless you get the really expensive one) and they will supposedly do a better job.
As for upgrade couldn't you get one custom built?

[bobstad]

Advice to live by; indeed.

I bought an excellent new battery about eighteen months ago; while the alternator is probably original equipment. Using my trickle charger which delivers 1.5 amps, with the battery too low to crank the starter though the headlight brightness seemed undiminished or nearly so; the green "fully charged" light on the trickle charger came on, after about twenty-four or a few more hours.

What I'm wondering now, is where to find the "long life roller bearings" and "new brushes" for the alternator? The people at the local NAPA store seem the best informed and also friendliest of the parts stores I'm nearest to and familiar with. Should they know? Also, what techniques are advised for changing the bearings? The brushes should be self-evident, is what I'd guess on my levels of mechanical abilities; I've done often on a car generator before cars had alternators: A '66 VW "square-back" I had from '82-'94.

I live in a vastly cluttered small 450 square foot apartment, overcrowded with all sorts of possessions; and my collection of cardboard boxes I used moving, which were a huge hassle to collect if I wanted good ones, leaving Eureka, CA for here, which is Bellingham, WA over the six months and eight round trips, so I'm loath to get rid of them. I should probably rent a storage nearby for $50/month.

Thus, I'm likely to procrastinate getting the alternator out of the car; at least until I have the parts and know what I'm doing. The impact of getting dirty and greasy with car parts also impacting my limited space; is likely best approached with careful planning and logistics. Particularly since "as is" I can still drive locally if I keep the battery charged; and haven't actually driven the car other than once downtown recently, since the middle of March when the problem arose.

Using my fine old ten-speed is the only way I exercise; so, I've taken down time with the car as a good reason to do more of that...I certainly can use far more of than I've been doing lately. My weight which three Julys ago by this coming one was at 178# has bumped up over ten pounds more than the most I've ever weighed previously, which was 241# at 5' 7.5" seeing my doctor at the clinic I go to last Thursday. I don't see much more of myself in my bathroom mirror than my head and shoulders; but, got a look in their bathroom mirror at the clinic at the rest of me, and resemble one of those toy figurines which when pushed over always right themselves, nearly as wide as they are tall.

You seem obviously an outdoorsman; and a passion with me, too. My problem is muscular atrophy in my back, ramifications of early life and juvenile spinal disease. The only thing I've ever found effective to cure myself; was time spent the whole month of October of '86 barefoot and nearly naked but for an old pair of light-weight cut-offs and a small nylon daypack, clambering on my hands and knees daily up and down the west fork stream bed of Piedra Blanca Creek, over the rounded rocks or sometimes house size boulders above the confluence at the Twin Forks campsite in the Los Padres National Forest, north of Ventura, CA in the mountain range which runs from Santa Barbara, CA out to Palm Springs, CA and north of Los Angeles doing so; with the Himalayas one of only two "traverse" mountain ranges in the world, which run from east to west rather than north to south.

I was surviving on a daily quart pot a day of brown rice I'd soak overnight to cook more quickly, boiled over a fire of California live oak twigs; vastly abundant at the campsite where my small mountaineering tent was pitched. By the end of the month I was really something, the ribs all showed in my chest and I'd lost the d-i-s-g-u-s-t-i-n-g flab amounting to breasts, which has always traumatized me; while I also gained an amazing agility and strength, particularly in my back.

I'd meant to stay there the whole month of November also, since at near the height of a drought lasting years which would've made that possible; but, circumstances easy to believe contrived if perhaps only coincidence, conspired to ruin my still fragile enough results. When a small tribe of very old boy scouts and the two old cigarette smoking codgers with them; showed up for a three day weekend at the end of October. The children, none of them older than twelve or so; commenced to pulling up my tent stakes while I was inside, or behind my back; and enjoyed all sorts of other pranks directed at me.

I'm an old boy scout and Explorer myself so within a couple days had won them over; and was promising to take them all upstream to some beautiful deep water pools to swim on Sunday, the last day they were to be there. That morning instead to be rid of them; I decided to make a hike with a full forty pound pack, to follow an interesting loop on the topographic map I had of the area: And ended up hiking forty-two miles in three days, seventeen on the third day I'd planned to rest, when picking up with a stranger on the trail whose company seemed enjoyable I allowed to pace me for ten miles from the place I was going to stop for the rest of the day and sleep that night, after an overcast sky tempted me to hike five miles from the original spot I'd planned to rest the day; thus ruining all the still fragile enough, newly animated muscles in my back.

Arriving late in the night at my tent with the batteries in my flashlight I'd been hiking with in my mouth, dead just before having to cross Piedra Blanca Creek on my hands and knees in the dark to get back to the campsite; I found my tent destroyed I'd left pitched, with my stash of brown rice suspended in a tree still untouched. By daylight, I could see a bear had gotten into my tent to get a head of iceberg lettuce someone had left inside; which after just a modest taste the bear had left behind. I was so damned stiff and sore I had to spend the next two nights being eaten alive by mosquitos without my tent to protect me; before I could pack myself and everything I'd been camping with to the trailhead and my car, two and a quarter miles away. The few weeks if even for that long; I've known what an able-bodied person may feel like.

I've been trying ever since to return to that spot to see if I could recreate my effort; and spent all of October of '92 there attempting that, though only by the end of the month had I felt I'd become focused and starting to really accomplish the sort of things physically I'd done in '86; when rains forced me to leave, a potentially dangerous spot where storms can suddenly wash huge torrents down from above in the rainy seasons. Plus my new light-weight mountaineering tent was a piece of expensive junk, which leaked like the proverbial sieve.

Why indeed!! Take your alternator apart, clean the housings, put in long
life roller bearings and new brushes.

Your electrical system should be looked at as a whole. Far more effective
than a bigger alt would be a new battery, When you start pumping 12 amps
through it to recharge it after a start, it will be charged in 1/2 the time that an older battery takes to get charged. Once charged the battery will only consume 2 amps or so.

Next, you would be amazed at how many cars, especially ones in rust prone areas have poor grounds. If the ground is not the same through out the car the alternator will have to work harder to provide voltage everywhere. You all know about performance exhaust but never think about performance electrical...big cable and clean grounds frees up HP in the alternator and it does not work as hard.

Get bluetooth hearing aids with the 16 or 20 band graphic equalizer built in.
Get a quality deck and you will hear better music and have no need for the welding cable,gold ends and caps big enough to challenge the local power company, to say nothing about the weight of special batteries..

New wiper blades in the rainy state, you will not need to run the wiper motor so much.

HID headlights make more light with less power by a lot, and they don't
fry your leg with heat if you get to close outside. Lower heat means things last longer too. Your alternator will love you!

LED lights use very little power to produce more light. They produce so
little heat it is hard to feel if they are on. Almost any incandescent light source on a car can be replaced with LED or HID technology.

Radiator...what??? Yup, a radiator with plugged up cores will run that
great big electric fan a lot more than a new radiator will.

AC..switch to hybrid freon that is legal to use most of these run 100 PSI
less head pressure. This not only runs your big condenser fan less but does
not drag the engine down as much to pump it.

Use window track lube to reduce the load on your power window motor.
You would not believe the difference in amps! All the components last way
longer too.

Now why is it that when ever a fuse blows guys go buy a bigger
alternator Do you really want to crank out more juice
to support your wasteful ways?? Look at all you got going on and help
your electrical system out a little!!!

Its the picture man, the big picture. We destroy the forest to save the
eagle..wrong wrong wrong, manage the whole forest and the eagle
will thrive. You go to the Doc with joint pain and he gives you drugs
that cause chest pain and heart failure..It don't work, you have to treat the whole, not just your specialty.

[bobstad]

Where to find such a resource; in this town of 70,000?

Have you ever thought of getting it rebuilt built by somebody?
By like a local specialist? I understand that they will use better parts than those refurbished (unless you get the really expensive one) and they will supposedly do a better job.
As for upgrade couldn't you get one custom built?

That sounds like a plan; though I worry the only people that specialized would be in a larger city?

What should I look for in the yellow pages? "Automotive electric" would seem reasonable.

[bobstad]

I've not done much of this for a long time; lately.

Why indeed!! Take your alternator apart, clean the housings, put in long
life roller bearings and new brushes.

Again; in case my long previous dialogue obscured my question; where would I find "life long roller bearings" particularly, which seem as if perhaps custom or specialty parts, and the new brushes?

Asking locally I'd probably visit the NAPA store; who of the auto parts places here I know seem friendliest and most knowledgeable.

Also; what are the techniques for changing the bearings? I probably won't take out the alternator until I have the parts and a good idea of what I'm trying to do; since the car can still be driven locally, etc.

I also need a new water pump, and would change the timing belt then too; so logical to do that when the alternator is removed: Quite a project for me, working in my parking space in front of the apartment's door.

Particularly considering the camshaft and crankshaft oil seals behind the timing belt obviously seem to be leaking, the alternator has gotten a thick coating from; so those should be renewed at the same time as everything else is done. That alternator could be out for months on end, the way I go about life; is what I worry about at least.

A project a "must do" me thinks; prior to the setting in of inclement weather next fall. I forget why off the top of my head now; though I think I reasoned that changing the valve cover gasket in this process would also be a good idea. I think I might try to find an old table to set up on the lawn between my parking space and the apartment; to cover with a tarp at night rather than attempting to drag anything inside. Hey, a brilliant idea; maybe? Good process here; writing..."thinking out loud."

.

[KJ4YXY]

That sounds like a plan; though I worry the only people that specialized would be in a larger city?

What should I look for in the yellow pages? "Automotive electric" would seem reasonable.

Well it would be good to have connections - I'm gonna have mine rebuilt soon but my friend knows a guy.
What size is your city (I live in Louisville so you can get a guess of size comparison)?
I think your basic auto shop (non - corporate) might be good, just need to make sure what type of job they do.
Also specialized doesn't mean anything...you just gotta have connections.

[Movin]

Careful, you are poking a sleeping polar bear wondering what the outcome might be!!
To avoid that lets micro size a little. Lets just look at the one bearing behind the pulley, the front bearing. Lets say we further narrow that down. This front bearing did not stay the
same from year to year even though there was some interchangeability from car to car and year to year for the complete assembly. Lets say your front bearing is one of the more common sizes a 20mm by 52mm by 15mm. That bearing has hundreds of possibilities that will fit the hole and work for a while.

Lets narrow it some more. Lets omit all the Chinese and Japanese brands. Wow, still a huge list. OKay, lets take one brand , a fairly reliable brand, Timken.

Wow, Timken, a quality brand , still has several performance levels and quality levels
that can support our 20-52-15 bearing. here is a link.

http://www.timken.com/en-us/products/Documents/Bearing_Specification_Guide.pdf

Just in this quality brand there are lots of 20-52-15 bearings.
There are unsealed bearings that are used in rebuilds, as well as shielded and
finally sealed and lubed for life bearings. With this description you still have to
chose the rating of "light" medium or "heavy" duty and there are several
other grades, some VERY expensive.

For long life i would probably choose the 304DD bearing as it is expensive but
it has not just shields but seals to hold in the special lube. There are several other choices but for rating and seal type , all this in just one quality brand~!!

[zoom zoom]

Aspires have 60 amp alternators, 90-94 proteges have 65 amp alternators, most fs (mazda 626/ford probe) engines have 70 amp alternators, and they all will bolt to b series engines. I think to use an fs alt you need the top tensioner bracket, but the bottom does bolt on just like any b series alternator. The B series bracket might work, I just haven't tried to use a b series tensioner bracket with an fs alternator yet to know for sure, haven't got that far.

[Movin]

Looking at the roller bearings in the link above we see that cc dd and vv are all double
sided seals in the bearing. Pulling up alternator parts at a typical parts store we get
this

http://www.davesdiscountautoparts.com/ShopByVehicle.epc?q=1990-FORD-Festiva-L4--1295cc--1.3l--F/i--Vin--H&yearid=1990%40%401990&makeid=28%40%40FORD%40%40&modelid=7879%40%40FESTIVA&engineid=6389@@L4-1295cc%201.3L%20F%2FI%20Vin%20H@@6389&catid=3@@Electrical&subcatid=50@@Alternator%20Parts&mode=PA&waitdisplay=True&rewrite=

[Movin]

In that list I would choose the fully sealed bearing even though it is more
expensive. The parts store link is just one store, Your NAPA store can
pull this same list. This is not the usual request for a parts guy so you
might need the most experienced parts guy to get anywhere.

These are really easy to put these parts into. Your original electronic parts
are a likely better than new parts available today. The only trick and it really
is pretty obvious is to hold the brushes in with a tooth pick or a wd-40 straw
while inserting the rotor.

This is offered as maintenance to freshen up an alternator, not to repair
an abused and smoked alternator. Diagnosis of parts is required just to start.

[bobstad]

All looks interesting here Movin!

In that list I would choose the fully sealed bearing even though it is more
expensive. The parts store link is just one store, Your NAPA store can
pull this same list. This is not the usual request for a parts guy so you
might need the most experienced parts guy to get anywhere.

These are really easy to put these parts into. Your original electronic parts
are a likely better than new parts available today. The only trick and it really
is pretty obvious is to hold the brushes in with a tooth pick or a wd-40 straw
while inserting the rotor.

This is offered as maintenance to freshen up an alternator, not to repair
an abused and smoked alternator. Diagnosis of parts is required just to start.

The alternator still was indicating a passable charging capacity without any electrical accessories such as wipers or headlights on when tested; though dropped way below functional to keep the battery charged if anything was turned on. I must've driven lots of miles as the battery slowly became nearly all the way discharged before finally unable to turn over the starter-luckily only ten miles from home rather than the five hundred last December, easily possible.

With still enough battery the headlights were bright yet not enough to turn over the starter; as mentioned before I recharged the battery to full charge on my trickle charger.

Without knowing enough to make a technical analysis though reasoning intuitively; my sense is the alternator is still in fair condition, good enough my renewing the aforementioned parts and particularly of the quality mentioned; could be an exceptionally good solution to the situation.

Nice to pull the alternator, wash in some kerosene then namptha; then while all spiffy clean and nice to handle do the necessaries and see what I've really got to work with: Namptha if after the preliminary kerosene things still look worth going into.

So often, my labor has saved huge expense with better quality results; while a strange habit amongst many types of peers not at all mechanically minded. I'm sort of a music-centric with virtuoso friends, leftist radical and sympathizer of, if not always in agreement with, tree-huggers.

Probably many places in the world people work for a living with fewer tools than I have; which isn't really too many. The $17 new TRW 3/4" breaker bar from a Spokane tool store in the early '90s; my most radical possession, I thought amazingly affordable then or maybe even a pricing error.

No doubt in part genetics, my limited mechanical abilities, since my paternal grandfather probably many a family member's favorite relative; was a great logger at one time used to engineering railroads, born in 1897 greasing donkey skids by the age of twelve. In 1960 he came out of an early retirement hunting and fishing, to build a logging bridge across the Pistol River in southern Oregon for his friend Sam Agnew who then owned all the timber rights in Curry county, three college -trained engineers said couldn't be done; he did in a day with four 180' logs and someone he'd known as talented, driving a cat. That stood until washed away by a flood in 1993. The second picture is a painting of my grandfather on the left, as a twenty-five year-old "supervisor of the woods;" done from a photograph by Eugene, OR artist Ken Brauner my father and uncle had done decades ago. I grew up with a picture book of Paul Bunyon as a child; still well recalled.

Of whom I have to say, that grandfather, his notions of correct forestry practices has always jibed quite solidly with those of Earth First! [http://earthfirst.org/] and contrary to commercial practices contemporary now. Simple common sense, being unfortunately brushed aside all too commonly; chasing the almighty "caged snake" aka $$$$$.

[2xclutchin]

This post will not add to the thread in any way shape, or form, but Thanks for sharing that story about your grandfather. Your posts are always something I look forward too.

[Movin]

If you have the $3.97 DVOM, $3.97 long pricked test light from HF and the headlight bulb tester, the circuit breaker tester and the inductive amp meter all mentioned in
another thread "electrical cool tools" You can rival the best and produce quick accurate results . How many amps did your alternator peak at during start up..no problem!!
Charging voltage? coming right up!! Starter current draw? Right here!! Volts while
cranking? Gottcha!

Earth First?? An organization that did great things in there time but has turned
into a money machine and does nothing to promote the health of our forests
ecosystem now, in fact they are to blame for the current disaster.

Green and Big city prevail against country and a sound forest ecosystem.

The knee jerk reaction of Big city and green groups has gone so far the other
way that the wrong they are doing is far more destructive than the loggers of
old that clear cut vast forest lands. WHY!!??

For tens of thousands of years the natives that lived here would burn all the
brush and young trees they could in this desert and east cascades. This would
cause new growth in vast grassland areas that would support large grazing
herds...their food. The more food they supplied to animals the more successful
their people were. Early capitalism.

European occupation brought excessive logging and trapping-hunting and also
brought an end to wildfire..for a time. People moved in and populated the land
here, making wild fire a disaster instead of a necessary part of out ecosystem.

One or two species going into extinction brought laws from the cities to protect
that species and to heck with the other species and the health of our forest.

Clear cutting brought laws from our cities to stop logging and to heck with the
genetics and health of our forest.

excessive hunting and trapping brought excessive controls and laws from our cities
and to heck with all the other animals.

Country common sense says to manage the forest for the health of the whole and to
make city people a new country, we don't need cities!

Green-city control of the country has caused a genetic imbalance never seen in our
ecosystem. The Old growth ponderosa, hemlock, and fir are being displaced with
an invasive species..old growth brush and massive forests of lodgepole pine. Lodge
pole pine and brush were what fed the fires that provided grazing ground for our
former large herds of grazing animals. We had loggers that could have imitated the
effect of wild fire but city people got rid of them.

Our National parks are a destination for school children to be fed lies by our
USFS employees about the ecosystem. They will not mention that an invasive
species is dominating the ecosystem and crowding out the former dominate
species because we have removed wildfire in its former capacity and we have
removed management that could imitate wildfire, because city people know
better and will tell us country folks how its done no matter how we vote.

The endangered species act by city folk has destroyed more of the ecosystem
than any other threat to the forest, simply because it puts the supposed ideal
habitat of one species to be managed and the thousands of others can go to heck
unless they make the list. This has nothing to do with the health of the ecosystem
and everything to do with city people, power, money made by green entities.

The people that live in the forest ecosystem want to see that ecosystem returned
to health but cannot because the city people out vote them. The city people want
to do good but cannot because the money of green groups prevail in communicating
with the city people. The green groups ignore the pleas to save our environment
and focus on making money. As long as green groups control what
city people know our forests will continue to fail and burn out of control
Earth first??? anything but!!!

[bobstad]

I'll get back to my alternator soon:

As far as the ideology; I like macrobiotic theorist and writer the Japanese man Georges Ohsawa's notion the past five thousand years of human entropy as far as our social evolution goes, have been devoted to the mastery of fire & salt; in other words metallurgy and chemistry. To the exclusion of the development of the rest of the human potential: And that Europeans turned out to be such belligerents because of the most recent ice age, they suffered far more than the rest of the world; leading to a more rapid though also more barbaric technological advancement.

Ohsawa also calls western civilization one long downhill slide since the Greeks of so-called antiquity, actually a renaissance culture from much earlier Greek society there. Thus, I feel damning cities without introspection based upon intelligence, throwing out the baby with the bath water. There is a popular writer now Derrick Jensen; who has liberal oriented recent college graduates I've run into here in Bellingham; seriously imaging themselves hunter-gatherers in their lifetimes, from the inevitable so they say collapse of industrialized society. Could be, feasibly I guess; the collapse of industrialized society, perhaps? Some would say is an ongoing facet of the reality; sort of a self-fueled implosion never bound to make anyone very happy. Though surviving that, to then live communally in wilderness villages; seems chimerical to believe in, no? Jensen particularly damns cities and civilizations; the "civitas" of Greek or Latin I forget now, the root word of both "city" and "civilization." Though he mistakes in grouping human social evolution into century size clumps rather than millennially, at a minimum; to try to make decent sense of things.

I saw a PBS special about the Greek Archemedies from about 500 B. C. about ten years ago; who'd become of special interest due to a book of his thought lost a thousand years, discovered under the text of a Byzantine prayer book scientists were making readable again and thoughtfully examining. One opinion expressed on the television show; was, had the book not been lost a thousand years, people would've been on the moon 500 years ago. Archemedies was that heavy a scientist; which makes a person pause to reflect upon how much, in the current state of things and/or in the historical past; a minority even as tiny as one person, still holds sway or potentially at least, over the rest of us. Which seems to maybe imply the difficulty of cooperative society; which has to be an ultimate goal, at some point of the species' development and evolution towards our potentials. I'm into the "build a bullet-proof planet" notion of the idea celestial bodies have and could collide with earth; so that somehow dealing with that potential, is one direction worth exploring.*

I think one problem people have to face is the tyranny of religions, bought into being supposedly as civilizing influences; particularly monotheism, which is genocide and racism instituted and stylized. Like the thirty year-old, ninety unit, two story, four building apartment complex I live in; which the people who work here have no bones about mentioning is falling apart. What could be more insane and wasteful? These sorts of problems won't work themselves out in a hundred years or even several centuries or more; but, are designs for trouble over much longer stretches of time; when such trends are manifested in society. With technological advance is the chance for better communication; if the nitwits allowed to speak were silenced and more rational minds could be let prevail.

Anyway, the notion forests can be done like agriculture currently, which is also a mistake; rather than allow the soil to be naturally fertile, is really troublesome to have to think upon. The reasoning is so simple; the reality so contrary to reason. I like the book The One Straw Revolution by Japanese natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, published in 1979. That is such a great book, everyone in the whole world being educated to read, should get through a copy by the time they are fifteen years old: Brilliant writing on both farming and forestry. And such a beautifully romantic story too; an autobiographical adventure in nature, growing food and learning what diseases trees. With even a movie starlet thrown in along the way; an incipient nervous breakdown, which does come to pass; though ultimately precipitating genius.

*Even with extra-terrestrial society? I'm not really into these things enough to speculate.


Fooey, it's late at night and I really need to get some sleep; as I think I'm going to pull the alternator tomorrow, to see if I can rebuild the thing myself with the sort of advantages Movin suggests are feasible at least. If I'm not really up to that, I don't suppose I'll be able to screw anything up bad enough; not to be able to exchange what I've got when I get another, to avoid a core charge?

[Movin]

I no longer have time to enjoy leisure reading, but I read history as I walk or hunt
our forests. Mushroom hunting is here, ipoh, and other late spring natural foods.

The forest will tell if it is natural and belongs there or if it has spent the last 10k
years as grasslands. It will tell if we have caused a species change if it was a forest.
It tells of weather changes that happen over thousands of years. The earth always
responds to shifts in weather and will return to middle ground. We school scientists
and other political people who try to teach us that we will control the weather!
Mother nature is still in control, but like any mother we should be nice and respectful
of her.

A few years ago weyerhaeuser lumber co. logged the sycan where I Elk hunted and made it look like the picture of your Grandfather logging. This would be Ag logging
in both instances. I was devastated by the outcome of the logging and even said the
land looked raped. Logger buddies that hunted said they felt betrayed to be responsible
for such irreparable damage. I feared the Elk herds would be destroyed.

In the last seven years I have photographed the beginning of the destruction of the
surrounding Wilderness and National Forest Land. Law suits prevented management
of the national forest for its health and to preserve its genetic strengths. Earth first
was responsible as well as several other interests that refused to use loggers on public
land to recreate the effect of wildfire. The forest became so impacted with growth
that never has been in thousands of years, the result is that disease and bugs have
destroyed millions of acres of forest. A wildfire there burned so hot the soil was
sterilized.

People freaking out wondering why we can't control bugs, disease and wildfire.
We took away normal grassland wild fire years ago, Made wilderness that cannot
be managed in any corrective manner and then stopped management practices in
our national forests.

The result of the above is that our public lands in the area currently are a waste land
and do not support wild life like they used to. The weyerhaeuser lands that I felt
so bad about are a beautiful attractive healthy forest and have sustained an ever
growing wildlife population. Even though this forest is surrounded by the public lands
the disease and bugs did no damage in the private forests, and no runaway catastrophic
fires burned there.

Our biggest problems are the wilderness and monument lands, they cannot be
managed to preserve their genetics and health. They are over run with invasive
species. This condition has never existed on earth before, that is why Earth First
is an appropriate name for the entity responsible. It will be interesting to see how
Mother Nature brings corrective action.
The National forest is rapidly getting in bad shape as well, All of the USFS budgets
are going into fire fighting and recreation. Defending management practices for
the preservation of our forests as they once were is fiscally impossible.

Proper education of our youth about our wildlands is not happening. The field
trips to national parks results in a Walt Disney presentation with no knowledge
gained about the current condition, or management practices that could produce
results like the old time healthy wildfire. They leave to go home sporting a "Keep
Oregon Green" tee shirt and wearing a Smokey the Bear hat. They get home,
point a finger at their parent(s) and say "Only YOU can prevent fire" ....
Good education....

Wilderness, Monument..Bad for ecosystem.

The parts store could test your alternator to see if it is putting out.
You probably need one but it might be free knowledge of the
possibility of another problem lurking.

[russian]

I'm pretty sure I use the protege alternator in my swap, the plugs were all the same. 1990 engine

aspire and protege and e-gt alternator would work, but they are all slightly different pulley sizes - which is fine, you just _might_ need a shorter or longer belt. But probably not.

Reminds me that I need to test the three or four spare alternators I have acquired with all the spare engines...