Anyone can give me some advise about cleaning an alternator. I not talking about the outside, but the internals. The generator stopped producting any voltage and after pulling it a part I found a bug had crawled between the diodes. The little fella is fried and I suspect the cause of the prbolem. I want to give it a good clean as there is a lot of greasy dust in side, does anyone know of a good product to use. I was going to use some thinners or actone and then I thought that It might be now good on the diodes. Any electronic/electric boffins out there that can advise.
Try some electronic cleaner, leaves no residue and completely evaporates. Any electronic store or Dick Smiths will have it.
Thinners or acetone will probably strip the wound wire insulation. On my rebuild I had an alternator caked in power steering fluid and dirt. I used a tooth brush and SuperCheap spray degreaser, wiped and removed as much crap as possible and then did not hold back washing through the assembled alternator. Let it dry out a couple of times and repeated till it look very clean. Only issue I was concerned about was bearing grease, but to date no problems. It sat for ages before being run, but sitting it in the sun to heat up should dry it out good.
Is that the electronic version of you know boats ? BTW this is more electro-mechanical maybe a little outside your field.
The guy asked for help, I gave it and I am also a fitter mechanic so I do know what im taking about, cleaned heaps of alternators in my time, junior member does not mean im in my teens.
Just use KERO and a brush Dave. As long as you dont use it clean the regulator you will be fine. Contact cleaner should be used for the reg. Back in the old days we used to use CFC's to clean stuff like this BUT we cant buy it anymore.
Degreaser is a great idea if you want to flush out all the grease from the needle roller bearing in the back end of the unit. Do NOT immerse the unit in any form of degreaser or solvent or detergent or ....... actually just do NOT immerse the unit. Careful brushing or wiping etc of the outside wont hurt it but remember as above. TrevZed is on to it, I've rebuilt hundreds of aircraft units & dozens of automotive (they are actually extremely similar), there's actually only a couple of areas that need to be clean, the rest wont seriously effect the operation in any way.
I was just gonna spray some degreaser on a rag and wipe really... I won't be submerging it in anything haha.
The bearings are fairly well sealed, spray with degreaser to your hearts content. Allowing it to dry well (as above) is just a precaution that if a small amount of degreaser got inside the bearing it would evaporate before being spun up, possibly diluting and thinning the grease.
The needle roller bearing at the back/brush end is NOT sealed at all on the slip ring end & I have seen the results of people cleaning without any knowledge of what they are doing - it gets expensive!
It's a dust seal NOT a solvent seal, it does not seal against the shaft and its only purpose is to keep dirt out and the grease in, it is NOT designed to prevent damage from taxi drivers etc squirting degreaser at them. Note I am talking about needle roller bearings NOT ball roller bearings, there are some with ball rollers and some with needle, depends on the brand and if it's OEM etc, I've seen both fitted to Z32s. Either way neither bearing should ever be submersed in solvent or any type. Actually what do I care - knock yourselves out, hit that bastard with paint thinners and then steam clean it at 25000PSI
