Catastrophic Alternator Failure. Ever Seen It?

Battery light on the dash came on today out of nowhere. Drove the truck home, noticed a whining, and smelled a burning. Knew the alternator was bad but didn't know it was this bad. Limped it another 5 miles and back to the parts store for a replacement and this is what I was greeted with after diving in. Has anybody had this happen? As far as I can tell it's the original from 2006 with 103k miles on it. Sadly it took the plug with it so I'm really hoping a replacement pigtail is available for that, guess I'll find out tomorrow. The rest of the wiring looks fine going to the harness

 

That backend is the regulator/rectifier and has some capacitors, which appears to have failed. Your pigtail can be recreated if there isn’t already a fix in the aftermarket. @caribe makaira may be able to help out with the part numbers.

 

That looks really gnarly. The melting looks old, but the alternator was working until today? Crazy!

 

Yeah, worked great until 5 PM today. Looking back at it there was some whining for a little while but I figured it was just the power steering pump.

Looks like there are pigtails available on ebay that look the same. Not really sure which wire goes where since all the factory ones are yellow

 

Looks like this has what I needed. I'll have to clean those wires off a little better because apparently none of them are yellow lol
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/need-help-wiring-alternator-plug-broken.705909/

 

Not quite this bad but I've seen oil leaks cause this and most recently a loose B+ terminal wire caused it to burn/melt on a 2GR highlander.

 

We had one on our old suburban that had the bearings fail. The shaft went wonky inside the case, the fan chewed up the case, it split the belt down the middle, then caught fire.


They would not take it as a core.

 

Connector is readily available.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog...nnector,alternator+/+generator+connector,2528

 

Ordered this one and it should be here tomorrow, thanks.

I see on the other thread I linked earlier the wire colors should be grey, green, and white. To me both the green and white just look yellow and cleaning them off didn't help. Should I assume these wires are cooked? I think MAYBE I can tell one is supposed to be white. They feel perfectly fine, they're just light yellow. Would you guys just use them? Should I trace them further back into the harness? They go into a hard plastic box and I know it'll break trying to get it open.

 

I burned up a couple in my Baja surf days, but that's a pretty good job.

 

Wires are pretty yellow right up to before the fuse box. Just discolored from almost 20 years of heat or cooked from the alternator? Wires feel fine, insulation feels fine. Should I check resistance with a multimeter and just send it if they're fine?

 

Send it. If they feel fine you should be good.

 

Wow, that's wild- you win the alternator destruction contest.

I had an internal voltage regulator fail "open" years ago when I was ~90 miles from home. It didn't melt the aluminum casting, but it basically melted everything inside the case. Oh, and it cooked the battery.