The wife blew a clutch in her alternator. She was driving back from a convention in Chicago on Sunday. She calls me about 20 miles from home and says her battery light just came on.....what should she do. Didn't want to alarm her so I told her just ignore it and keep coming home. Checked it out yesterday morn and the alternator wasn't charging. Called OReillys and they put one on their morning parts run. After pulling the old one off and looking at it, it appeared the pulley had stripped because it just spun but nothing turned inside. Tried to pry off some kind of rubber plug on the front of the pulley, but couldn't get it off. Then it started spinning and then quit again. There appears to be some kind of clutching mechanism inside. Anybody familiar with how these work. I assume its some kind of gas saving device like a fan clutch, but I've never seen anything like it.
Sounds painful. My wife's alternator was surgically removed after she turned 50, which is what doctors recommend nowadays. Fortunately, it was removed before her clutch blew.
possible help! Ya might try searching this toyota forum for some help: http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/
Hey OldFox, what year is this Toyota? and what Model? Depending on the year the alt. pulley may require a decoupler tool. Pulley would look like this.
It's an 09 Corolla, Dewey. Pulley didn't look like that. The front was all rubber. Luckily, I didn't have to swap anything over.....the new one came complete. I figured out what it was....just hadn't seen anything like it before.
Yeah that is actually the same thing as the pulley I posted but Toyota made theirs "tamper proof". The alternators I sell come with it on as well. There's a factory tool for these too, kinda looks like one of those 3 jaw oil filter wrenches, only smaller. PS: They do look really strange.
What would be the purpose of a slip clutch on an alternator? Apparently just to confuse shadetree mechanics and cost more money.
The theory here is that the car uses less energy to run rpm's below 1200 at which point the alt. stops charging and becomes an idler and the battery takes over. According to the manufacturer this puts let stress on electrical parts and makes them last longer, plus conserves fuel by not "lugging" the engine at long idle situation. My personal opinion on this "upgrade" is that it shortens battery life considerably.
Seems to me like just another unnecesary thing for very little practical use. Lots of town driving would take a lot out of the battery. Also I've never had an engine so small it has to lug at idle. Sure hope my old cars and truck lasts a lot longer. I wouldn't know what to look for in a new car. Don't like SUV's, mini-vans, or Smart aleck tiny cars, and can't afford a sports car. Now I'm soundin like grandpa.
If the engine uses the old v-pulley belts, a traditional Nippondenso alternator should be a bolt-in, without having to alter anything That's proof of what lasted longer and who's getting all the stress. If we scratch the surface, we might discover that Toyota might be partly owned by a major straight jacket manufacturer, as well as a pharmaceutical company
Actually, a decoupling pulley on an alternator does only one thing: it allows the alternator to 'spin down' after the engine stops on shutdown. Alternators will always need to charge, even at idle, and the computer controls charging through pulse modulation after about 1995. So the only thing it does is allow the alternator to spin down to reduce the shock to the alternator.
If it's about avoiding shock, a simple ratchet drive comparable to a free-wheeling bicycle hub would have done the job and would have been reliable through the alternator's entire service life
