Originally Posted by
bikamper
First issue was that the new hires at the local NAPA are useless. They can't look up anything without a make/model/year/# of cylinders/with or without AC. I went to the local Auto Zone instead and the old guy behind the counter just asked "what size and how many". I grabbed four at 1 5/8" because I screw up often.
I ran into that when I needed an alternator for an old tractor. It had been converted to 12 volts by mounting a junkyard alternator to it. There are several different alternators that are popular for this mod because they have the diodes and voltage regulator built in, so there is only one wire to connect to the battery. The tractor came to me that way, so I had no idea what car the alternator came from. Just saying "I need one of these" and handing them the part wasn't good enough. The counter person passed me off to someone with more mechanical experience. First, he scrolled through a lot of microfiche to find one that looked like mine so he could figure out how to hook it to the test machine. The alternator only has one output terminal, how hard can it be? After he confirmed it was junk, I asked how much for a new one and his reply was "What make and model?" Didn't we already cover this?
So I said what about the one on the microfiche. It was only $45, so I said to ring it up. The mounting ears were slightly different, but I just needed to move a couple washers to line up the pulley to the drive belt and I was in business.