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lost tac, what could it be???

Of course! Anyone done this job lately? OK to purchase Autozone brand or do I need to scale the depths of the earth and get some super secret king dingaling brand only offered by moneybags leroy dollars...i mean diesel
 
When the alternator went out on my '98 K2500 Burb on the way to NYC back in 2014, I swung into an Advanced Auto in Jolliet, IL and they had the correct replacement alternator with the correct pulley on it. But that was 10 years ago.

Do NOT use AutoZone for ANY electronic part/sensor/switch!

If you have a reputable auto electric rebuilder locally that does starters and alternators, take it there for a complete rebuild.
 
OK to purchase Autozone brand or do I need to scale the depths of the earth and get some super secret king dingaling brand only offered by moneybags leroy dollars...i mean diesel

Explicitly: HELL NO!

Unless you are into S&M and say like doing the job over and over again because of shit no-quality beyond cheap parts from a company that fires a veteran for stopping a robbery under their coward "No Hero" policy.

The burning small and smoke from this Autozone POS reman had me with the pin pulled on the fire extinguisher.

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Their brake pads come off and trash the rotors... They were not the reason I won the Carnage thread, but, it all adds up.


BTW I've actually met Leroy In Person. He's one of the few left supporting this forgotten diesel with Quality Parts. Although he has a neat busted block starter bolt hole fix now: I don't see an alternator offered on his site.

You will learn quick enough that it's easy to find wore out painted crap sold as reman for these vehicles, but, difficult to find quality stuff.

X2 on the advice of keep the larger diameter pulley: I have swapped them in store before. Keep your core if in doubt.
These are not that expensive "new" vs. reman anymore.

Real Delco’s last a seriously long time.

🤪 :woot: Sarcasm Will? Remind me again about this noisy firecracker hot alternator design that burns it's diodes etc. out. The old days just wore the brushes out ... IMO these don't make it that long and are not designed to be easily repaired. A throwaway item now.

That's why some of us went to extremes to stuff the bigger CS-140 in it's place.

To the OP it needs a rear support or the vibration will snap the alt case clean in half. Should you walk down the upgrade path. Like so...

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Not sarcasm- if people keep the electrical load on the truck in normal ranges getting 150,000 miles from a stock Delco unit is frequent. 300,000 miles is a normal life for the truck engine when properly dealt with. So a single replacement of an alternator seems appropriate.
I don’t know a lot of people who had to replace factory alternator in way less mileage than that.
In the fleet where we were putting 100,000 miles per year on the trucks, both gassers and 6.5- the trucks were normally cycled out of the fleet at a bit over 300,000 miles. We had a couple electrical accessories added but not much. The diesels went through alternators slightly more often than gassers but 90% of them made it to the 300,000 mile mark without failure. Usage was different- two drivers daily drove the trucks am shift starting the truck and it didn’t shut off until the pm shift was done. So trucks only start once per day most the times.

The single shift trucks were the more abused ones on starting. These guys went store to store 5 days a week being driven maybe 2-3 miles between stores with occasional 10 or 15 mile run to get to first store from office. Truck would be shut iff and started on average 10 times per day. We would see starters and alternators die around 100,000 mile intervals. Batteries slightly less life when normal lead acid. Once we tried the AGM from optima- we would move the used batteries to new trucks. Pretty consistently saw 8 years from them. And almost all we had were the Mexico made ones. It was enough to convince me- I run optima in all my stuff they make them for. My assumption is the people that say quality went down since they opened the mexico plant is it’s just people trying to pressure them to reopening a plant in USA. In my personal vehicles 10 year span is my normal- unless the vehicle sits a long time unused. I run the yellow tops and red toos depending on application. When you kill an agm they don’t recover well.

Back directly on alternators
If a person bump up electrical draw for stereo, lighting, etc then yes going from cs130 to the cs144 is smart- so long as they increase the appropriate wires with it to handle the load. Idk if factory wires are good for the increased amperage load or not off top of my head. If so, great. If not then leaving stock wires with the bigger amps is a new complication.

A call to powermaster with a list of components and the power they consume along with what size are your factory wires will have their engineers specify what alternator is appropriate. Be sure to get their input as to battery cca rating as well.

Having a match system is far kore critical to long term economics of it than most people realize. I say think of it like an engine. Have a giant turbo but everything else stock won’t work well. Sometimes you can add one thing as an upgrade like bigger diameter exhaust and help flow and it will not negatively affect other things.
Having the intake system of filter and inner cooler flow right amount for the bigger turbo then the exhaust handle that volume of air will do much better. But if you don’t adjust the fuel in proportion then results will not make great results. It all has to balance for long term efficiency.
 
I had 21X,XXX miles on my Delco alternator when it went out in the Burb. Don't know if it was from the factory, or a new replacement (there was no reman label on it) when it went out, but the Burb has the dual HVAC, premium sound system and power everything. The last set of Sam's Club lead-acid batteries lasted just shy of 8 years before one went bad in 2020.
 
I had 21X,XXX miles on my Delco alternator when it went out in the Burb. Don't know if it was from the factory, or a new replacement (there was no reman label on it) when it went out, but the Burb has the dual HVAC, premium sound system and power everything. The last set of Sam's Club lead-acid batteries lasted just shy of 8 years before one went bad in 2020.
Cs130 or cs144?
Either way sounds like acceptable life imo. Imagine previous owner changing it half way. Thats 105,000 mile average per alternator. I see nothing wrong with that for the cost of the alternator. Some manufacturers get 50% longer life, even double but the cost difference is ridiculous.
I own two Toyotas currently one of which is a pickup I got from a good friend. The parts last longer but the cost of each part is double or triple that of gm. Labor times are 1.5-2 times as much. So GM wins the long term cost battle.

And before going to the false assumption I also had of mpg savings -
2001 suburban 2500 hd 6.0 selectable 4wd BFG a/t tires 17.5mpg
2005 escalade 1500 6.0 full time 4wd street tires = 17 mpg
2001 toy tacoma pre runner 4door 2wd v6 street tires = 16.8 mpg
2007 toy fj cruiser selectable 4wd pathfider 2” lift slightly oversized a/t tires= 16.5 mpg
But on really long hiway trips both gm mog went up 1-2 mpg sustained freeway use
Both Toyotas slower than gm, weaker towing, rides not as nice obviously,
No increased mpg sustained hiway trips. Towing light trailers dropped mpg of the Toyotas but not GM.
The FJ is definitely best offroad. Not as good as the hummer obviously but an excellent choice. Hummer does 10.5 mpg driving full throttle everywhere. 12.5 when driven like a normal person drives.

Both Toyotas eat an alternator about 200-225,000 mile intervals from forum talk.
Cost is twice as much as a cs144.

Neither suburban nor escalade ever got an alternator up to when gone at over 200,000 mile.

Hummer with 6.5 is something like 150,000 miles is my guess right now and stock cs144 still. Definitely extra electrical load has been put on it.

I am planning on a new one going in with the new engine and making the old one a spare on the shelf. Last week before pulling engine I saw the volt meter bounce to 16v so the regulator might have just failed. But my hitch slide in electric winch got used a lot for rescuing so between that, the time the starter got skewered by rebar and was shorted out for about 15 minutes straight, the times I ran batteries low out camping then alternator charging them back up, same scenario running the air compressor at different events filling tires up after jeeps deflating then needing aired up, etc.- I worked the heck out of that alternator. Oh plus the two times the factory hummer start prestolite that weighs a million pounds hung up and once melted the side post connection off a battery- probably not good for the alternator too.

While typing my book saw AK DD’s post. So yeah- I think AC Delco Remy did a fine job with their design. @ak diesel driver- cs130 or 144?
 
As you walk around a parking lot one may notice the lack of noise as the vehicles equipped with this CS-130 firecracker are less and less on the road. Must have been there to warn pedestrians.

Just charging a run down battery was enough to push them over the raged edge of the thermal envelope GM ran em at. This was their fatal flaw that cooked them to ruin if you asked anything of them, even normal use like to top their own vehicle bat up from sitting.

"Battery and alternator please."

Our stock 1995 Yukon 350 gas went through several of them in under 150K. One time it made it a block from the parts store before shutting off as the battery was run flat after one CS-130 failure while driving. Anytime the battery was run down some, esp Red Top AGM, it would overheat the diodes and the next day the alt would quit from the heat damage.

I recall a few I changed from noisy/rough bearings.

The fried bearing unit was dropped in somewhere in NE AZ as the one in Patch just quit while towing on the parts route. It was the only one available in the area. Months later it smoked the bearing off in that one...

No, I have been through too many of the CS-130's myself vs. older design ones that just needed brushes. Newer designs say in a 2002 Yukon simply no trouble at all with them even with charging a run down AGM.
 
@Will L. I don't remember, but I think it was the stock 120A high output because of the dual HVAC. Iirc, there were two different amperage output alternators listed for my 98. I suppose I could go out and look under the hood, but that's not really on my to-do list today. Going to a celebrarion of life for a long-time friend who passed in his sleep Sunday is #1 on my to-do list today.
 
@Will L. I don't remember, but I think it was the stock 120A high output because of the dual HVAC. Iirc, there were two different amperage output alternators listed for my 98. I suppose I could go out and look under the hood, but that's not really on my to-do list today. Going to a celebrarion of life for a long-time friend who passed in his sleep Sunday is #1 on my to-do list today.
You have our condolences.
Seems to be more and more as we get older.
I guess it's to be expected
 
Alternator issue. Connection likely or it’s toast.
Your tachometer comes from the alternator, when you get the new one it is crucial you have the identical size pulley- often you have to reuse your old pulley on the new alternator.
Sir, the most important thing is the the number of grooves, correct? you can see the outer rim circumference is slightly off on this new one. Big deal? thank you in advance!
 

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Gentleman, your bestowed wisdom has helped me tremendously, I’m up and running… no sooner than my new alternator got slapped on and I turn her over the AC unit starts squealing like a stuck pig… uncharted waters as far as what I’ve worked on before but I’m assuming I need a whole new unit? Or is it just the pulley that needs swapping out?
Is there a way to post videos on here to provide a better example? Thank you in advance
 
Is the A/C on when it makes noise? Take the belt back off and spin the compressor pulley by hand if you can. It's either a locked up compressor or locked up bearing in the pulley.
 
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