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Originally Posted by wanna986
I just finished diagnosing my red battery/generator light which started to glow yesterday. The alternator is not charging the battery.
It turns out that upon engine shut-down, when the serpentine belt stops, the alternator impeller (?) keeps spinning and then, a second or two later, decides to whine/screech to a halt.
Three questions:
Which part of the alternator has failed?
Is the failed part consistent with not providing a charge?
Can I remove and rebuild on my own?
Thanks. Hoping to get back on the road sooner rather than later...
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Two things:
1. It may just be a false warning, have you confirmed indeed the alternator is not charging?
From Wikipedia:
Once the engine is running and the alternator is generating, a diode feeds the field current from the alternator main output, thus equalizing the voltage across the warning light which goes out. The wire supplying the field current is often referred to as the "exciter" wire. The drawback of this arrangement is that if the warning light fails or the "exciter" wire is disconnected, no priming current reaches the alternator field windings and so the alternator will not generate any power. However, some alternators will self-excite when the engine is revved to a certain speed.
Not sure what year your boxster is. How many wires do you see coming from the alternator? I haven't even looked at mine. 2 wires = self-exciting, which i highly doubt, but who knows.
2. It could be the rectifier in the Alternator that goes bad. I highly doubt you can buy the rectifier alone without the alternator, they make them specific to the alternator. This is probably 95% of the reason alternators stop charging.
Alternators are really just generators, And Generators only produce AC current. The rectifier in the alternator converts AC to DC.
I highly suggest you don't service the alternator, just buy a re-built one, they're fairly inexpensive, plus you can get an aftermarket one that produces more current and maybe you can add a kick ass sound system
That's just my suggestio