Sunday, December 2, 2012

Restoring an alternator and starter

My alternator and starter were really crusty looking, but they both still worked great when I bench tested them at the parts store.  There was no need to replace them since they are both perfectly fine, so I just restored their appearances to new for aesthetic purposes.

Starter
I apparently did really poor photodocumentation throughout this entire process as I appear to have very few photos.  This is the starter as it started out.  I cleaned and degreased it well, removed the solenoid cover and blasted that down, then sprayed it with an aluminum paint.  I also sprayed the strap with aluminum paint.  I sprayed the body of the starter with Eastwood's Black Rust Encapsulator because it was matte black.
Now the starter is slightly improved.
 Alternator

This is the alternator as it started.  It is only 60 amps so I may still end up needing a new one.  This will at least get my engine started for the initial fire up, at least.



This is the magical aluminum paint I use to refinish all my aluminum parts.  This is what I sprayed the transmission with too.  It looks exactly like real aluminum finish.

This is how the alternator ended up.  To do this I removed the pulley and fan and sandblasted them, then etch primed and painted.  For the alternator itself, I scraped any crud off then sprayed down with brake parts cleaner.  I then wire wheeled to get shiny aluminum, primed, and painted.  The final result looks like it came straight off the parts store shelf.  I took some liberties with the color of the fan and pulley colors just for the sake of more color contrast.