alternator woes

[fatcatlawyer]

On Valentines night there I was driving home after having redeemed a BS certificate (Baby sitting!) not the other. when all of a sudden there comes on the charge light and the sediment light.

"Oh dear" I said - or something like that. I arrived home with no bother and the folloing day set about resoving the problem. First I checked the battery with my multimeter and sure enough no charge was coming from the engine. A replacement alternator was needed. Have you seen the price of those things new? It almost enough to make you want to plug yourself into an electric chair - or at least undergo some other form of electric therapy.

So a tour of the local scrappies was called for. All I can say is that the Mazda B2500 and Ford Rangers must be long lived ' cos none were to be found.

Next it was a search on 'titernet. Ultimately decided I would have to take it off and see if a repair to the same was possible. Just had the bad news. The rectifier had blown and that part suprise suprise is none obtainable so it will have to be a reconditioned jobby - £160

Without it the car won't go so I have just authorised the legalised theft of my cash for that purpose.

Question. and I know there is a long sticky on here, but has anyone had any success in tracking down the various innards so as to avoid this sort of expense.

I ask this to see if the cumulative knowledge of the forum might save some costs next time it happens albeit not to me again I hopes
Ian G

[briwy]

Many years ago when I regularly played with Minis the Lucas alternator rectifier packs used to pack up.

These consisted of a series of parallel plates with individual diodes between them to form the full rectifier bridge. A new pack was some horrendous price well out of my pocket but it was possible to carefully remove the old knackered diode/s (usually only one failed, at most two) and solder a new one in it's place.

I don't know if the Bongo rectifier is a similar design or just a sealed "black box" type of thing. If anyone has had one to bits perhaps it's worth investigating as individual diodes are fairly inexpensive. Maybe Geoff g8dhe has an idea what is like?

[Simon Jones]

Albaston in Plymouth has been given several good reviews and I seem to recall has even been recommended by Ian. Contact details here from Kirsty:

http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... th#p521710

[teenmal]

This looks not a bad buy for a New unit....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MAZDA-BONGO-B ... 19c1d593b7

[maviczap]

I bought one of these following similar problems to yours.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310358250327#ht_1145wt_1110

[g8dhe]

Maybe Geoff g8dhe has an idea what is like?

See this discussion, Ady had a spare available to look at when I popped in last year, but there wasn't really much to go on, without disassembling the entire unit, which as it was a worker we decided wasn't a good idea as it required riveting to re-assemble! http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... 10#p515810

[Poohbear]

I bought one of these following similar problems to yours.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310358250327#ht_1145wt_1110

Same here, but they are the ones that are sold as 90A but are actually only 80A as stated on the alternator plate and the packaging and documentation.