wkbrdngsnw
New member
Went four-wheeling this weekend in the mountains and had an alternator failure at the bottom of a trail 20 miles from a paved road. Was coming down a hill and the belt was squealing so I looked down and Gen 1 was lit. I shut it off in the middle of the trail. Opening the hood expecting to see a belt that was chucked off but it was still attached and was smoking trying to melt itself to the pulley. Turns out that the alt had locked up.
After some thought it was decided to take Gen 2 off and switch it with Gen 1 since there is no load on the 2nd bat during normal use. The Gen 1 also helps drive the power steering pump which tends to be useful offroad. Doing this on a steep hill with everything still HOT was not fun. To make things worse I screwed up and managed to break the ear off Gen 2 but there was just enough to hold the top. I tensioned it and tightened the lower bolts. Surprisingly they were able to keep the tension. I was back in business but with no way to charge the 2nd bat there was a finite number of starts before it would be dead. The solution was just to keep it running all day.
Being the idiot I am, I even ran 2 additional trails and camped with my friends overnight where I shut it off instead of going home. It started no problem due to the 2 month old batteries that I was very happy I got now.
What I am thinking of doing is taking the parts out of the broken case and putting them i the one that locked up to go on the Gen 2 side. For the other I'm thinking of finding a regular ground alt for Gen 1 to keep the costs down.
It definitly was a good trick to get the truck home and proof again why the 24V system is not entirely junk and why the CUCV's are better than there civilian counterparts.
After some thought it was decided to take Gen 2 off and switch it with Gen 1 since there is no load on the 2nd bat during normal use. The Gen 1 also helps drive the power steering pump which tends to be useful offroad. Doing this on a steep hill with everything still HOT was not fun. To make things worse I screwed up and managed to break the ear off Gen 2 but there was just enough to hold the top. I tensioned it and tightened the lower bolts. Surprisingly they were able to keep the tension. I was back in business but with no way to charge the 2nd bat there was a finite number of starts before it would be dead. The solution was just to keep it running all day.
Being the idiot I am, I even ran 2 additional trails and camped with my friends overnight where I shut it off instead of going home. It started no problem due to the 2 month old batteries that I was very happy I got now.
What I am thinking of doing is taking the parts out of the broken case and putting them i the one that locked up to go on the Gen 2 side. For the other I'm thinking of finding a regular ground alt for Gen 1 to keep the costs down.
It definitly was a good trick to get the truck home and proof again why the 24V system is not entirely junk and why the CUCV's are better than there civilian counterparts.