My Lucas alternator has definitely been sounding a little off recently and figured maybe the bearings were getting to the end of their life and was the reason I had been having an annoying whistling sound, so I ordered up a replacement from James Paddock.
It arrived next day which was good as I only went for the standard free delivery and came complete with the fan and pulley.
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| My Ragdoll cat was also very delighted with the new arrival |
I thought installing the thing would be very straight forward and only take a few minutes. Remebering to disconnect the battery before carrying out any electrical work I set about removing the wiring connector from the rear. Its held in place with a retaining clip and once removed I thought it would pull straight off but I couldn't get it to budge.
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| I removed the cap to see if there was any reason this thing wouldnt easily pull off |
In the end I posted on Club Triumph forum for some advice as I had visions of broken plastic coming. It was confirmed it should just pull off so I gave it some serious pulling and eventually it did come off.
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| The offending article eventually pulled free |
Once the old one was removed it was a simple case of fitting the new one a making sure the alignment between all the pulleys was maintained with the aid of the spacers.
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| Old one finally off |
Everything was retensioned allowing around 3/4" bounce in the fan belt at the half way point between the alternator pulley and water pump pulley.
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| New one on |
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| Connector back in place |
The car fired up again no problem and the alternator is definitely a little quieter. The question is whether this was the cause of the whistling noise I have been trying to diagnose for a while. It normally sounds worse when driving so I will report back on that the next time I get out for a drive.
