Premature Alternator Failure??

About to go under the hood and diag my whining noise...I am 90% sure it's the alternator. Truck is a year and a half old with 73k...anyone else do an alternator this early? Just curious.

 

That's a lot of miles in 1.5 yrs.

Whining could be a lot of things.

 

Has it taken in any water while off road? That is the #1 killer of alternators.

 

Idler bearing, top right, famous for sounding like a failed alternator. Buy a cheap stethoscope and touch it to all the spinning pulleys.

 

Maybe dodged a bullet on this one...my stethoscope (long screwdriver) is telling me hands down idler pulley next to alternator as Bishop84 mentioned. I'll let you know after I replace it...tks guys.

 

Quiet as a mouse after replacing this...

 

OP:

What mfg/part # did you use for this repair?

 

Did that thing actually fail? Or just run dry? More often than not, I find that just greasing noisy bearings will fix the problem, probably just as long as replacing it. Maybe longer, since DIY typically results in a greater volume of grease packed in than a factory bearing has.

Some careful work with a dental pick set could pop off the seal, then pack in some bearing grease, then push the seal back in place.. might have kept going for years. Even "knotchy" bearings typically go for years after being repacked. Often, the knotchyness is some kind of grime or burnt/dried grease, so repacking it breaks that up and it again turns smooth as silk.

 

Gates/36173

 

Sounded like a supercharger under the hood.

Agree wholeheartedly sir with running dry. Used to repack all of my motorcycle wheel bearings and it worked well. I'm thinking repack the one I took off and save it as a spare...especially since these things are upwards of $50.

 

Just buy the bearing for a few bucks if it noisy it's bad grease won't help it, the bearing was pressed in it will come out.

 

once you hear a bearing squealing like that.... its done... yeah you can repack it, but its already been worn out....

 

Nope. Squealing means dry, and possibly contaminated. Very often its still in great shape.

 

The bearing shouldn't be over $10 why waste your time trying to grease a noisy bearing? It won't fix it once the metal is gone it's not coming back.

 

Unless you let it run for 5 years, the bearing is probably just dry.
And no, it isn't a waste of time to grease it. Its a lot LESS time to grease it than replace it, costs NOTHING AT ALL (because you probably already have a bucket of bearing grease), takes a lot less time than it takes to REMOVE and REPLACE it, and will likely last longer than a badly greased new bearing anyway.

 

dont you have to pull the idler off to grease it properly...... may as well just replace it with a new one and go for another 73k miles.

 

Why would you want to take it off? Just pop the seal and shove in the grease.

 

No. Just no.

Once worn and contaminated the new grease may dampen the sound but those metal pieces are still chipping away at the bearings.

Waste of time repacking a damaged bearing.

Now if you repacked it prior to the damage, well that is an entirely different story. Like it used to be a regular maintenance item to repack wheel bearings. Now not so much.

 

Where did the grease go if the seal is good? It does not evaporate or ware out.