440 pulley queal

[Xbird]

Stripped the nose down today so I could inspect the pulleys and begin rooting out and fixing my belt squeal issue. This is a cast crank 440, I can't get the crank pulleys to budge.

Have the bolts and balancer bolt removed, tried some gentle persuasion with a leather hammer but no luck.

Manual doesn't have anything on this i could spot.

Are the pulley centers just that snug on the snout with likely a bit of a rust grime ring holding them on, or do they require a puller?

[M & J]

Most crank pulleys require a puller.

[Xbird]

that's what i figured, i have the "standard" 3-claw type but i don't think it will work with this depth of pulley. Manual says remove pulleys then use a puller on the balancer, which i don't need to remove. Setup reminds me of the pontiac 455s I've had, once the bolts were removed they popped off the balancer without a puller.

[cook elandan]

The pulleys once unbolted should come off.  Can you get a puller that uses the bolts that thread in  and pull the balancer and pulleys off and then you can use a little more force to split the two. 

[Rickf1985]

The pulleys are separate from the balancer, just tap from the back as best you can on one side and then the other back and forth and it should start to move pretty quickly. Like you said, years of rust and dirt.

[Xbird]

thank you. out on the ol girl now.

I'm beginning to suspect that the squeal is the dual alternator belts, same part numbers and new, but definitely not identical. The squeal comes in at highway speeds without steering wheel movement. (doesn't squeal with low speed turning either) It'll hit and it can't be "driven thru". I have to back off to mid 40 mph then feather back in. Sometimes she'll roll for miles without a pip, other times I'm fighting it constantly.

Going over and cleaning up all the pulleys, doing some degreasing and  just flushed the heater core and block. i'll try a little more gentle persuasion and pry bars, i can see the interface of the pulley and snout, it's on there by about 3/16ths. pulley alignment is machinist's straight edge verified and is good. previous owner had the belt on the wrong crank pulley groove. fixed that my first or second outing with it, but didn't really do anything for the problem.

Do not want to pull the balancer, don't have the tool for it.

[Rickf1985]

I will bet money the alternator pulley is worn out from the slipping belts. It does not take much to wear them out and if it has been burning them like you say that pulley is history. The solution is going to be a new alternator pulley and a matched set of belts. Finding matched belts is getting hard anymore.

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

You said dual alternator belts.  The dual alternator belt arrangement is only used with AC installations.  Non AC setups only use one belt

[M & J]

And Rick was right. I read crank pulley but my feeble brain thought harmonic balancer. Sorry about that.

[Xbird]

correct, AC setup. crank pulley popped right off with a little pry from behind, thickness at the hub made the hammer tapping largely ineffective since i couldn't give it a good pop from behind. did a pretty hard core cleaning of all the pulley grooves, the amount of packed/burned in dirt and rust dust was pretty significant, as was the amount of belt dust between the fins on the fan clutch. Have some spare alt belts in storage, going to do a match-up if possible with them, if not a trip to napa for that. Then going to put it all back together and take it for a run, worse comes to worse, i'll have to go for the alt pulley. 

[Xbird]

Was going to start a new thread, but hopefully the input will keep rolling along  . Sooo, after doing a front end shade tree restoration I bolted her most of the way together today. Upon firing it up to top up the coolant system I was greeted with the wonderful sound of belt squeal. I did manage to get a more closely matched set of alt belts, so to hear the noise at idle and up was disheartening to say the least.

While i had the front end apart and all belts off, the alternator was making a clicking noise if i spun it backwards. It always spun freely, so that bit of a noise had me scratching my head.

With it running and making a racket today, i was ear-balling the noise source and quickly came to the realization that not only was it coming from the alternator pulley, but that said pulley was not spinning at all and the belts were just running over it. At one point in the process i did tighten them up further, no change in the noise and that's also when i saw it not moving.

Pulled the alt out ... (would've been nice to do while the rad was out, eh? LOL) and there's no clicking and it spins freely.  i??

What do you all think, bearing in it shot and as soon as they get a heat load, lock up? Pulleys do have a wobble, this is a 3437813 alt, not sure if it's original, previous owner said it was "converted" to a one wire type by the owner before him .....

Parts parts parts ...sigh .... gotta love this old stuff, still enjoy working on it though.

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

1 wire alternator setup is not stock (built in regulator).  Stock Dodge MH chassis had a external regulator mounted to the plate at the rear of the engine with the ignition module and ballast resistor.  If this is a aftermarket high amp alternator upgrade (e.g 150 amp or larger) then you may not have enough belt size to run it. 

[Xbird]

numbers on it come back as a '74 dual pulley alternator, (3438713 sub 5305) winding is 60 amps from the looks of it inside. the shaft is definitely bent, still have that bit of a clicking coming from the inside in reverse rotation, along with a light squeal from the bearings.--this is as it sits on the garage floor. never saw one that spun as freely as this does just straight up lock-up the way it did. It has been in this thing for many years, previous owner ran it a long time the same routes to the same races that I take it to along with trips to upstate NY. need to find a suitable replacement and with the original wiring gone would prefer to stay with a 1-wire setup.

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

Not sure what you have but the stock alternator (Dodge P/N 3895641) looks like this (NAPA Parts; Dodge MH electrical system)




If that is not what you have then you have some research to perform.

[Rickf1985]

If it is bent then you have answered your own question, it will need to be replaced no matter what. If you are running two belts you probably need to limit the amps to around 100 max. That is more than enough to run a normal vehicle. You are not powering anything out of the ordinary are you? A 60 amp alternator will easily keep up with any normal load on the vehicle. If you are running a DC refrigerator then you might want to step up to a 100 amp just so you are not maxing it out but there are limits to what the belts will handle. And like I said before, the pulleys are shot.

[Rickf1985]

Dave? What are you doing on here on a weekday? Yes, as Dave says, that would be the stock alternator. You can stay with the one wire conversion but not as high of an amperage. You have some choices to make. And if you stay with the one wire get a new pulley.

[Xbird]

got a new one of the same variety on the way with pulley installed. original source is A-B body from about '70-74 from the looks of the #s digging I've done. Nothing out of the ordinary draw-wise. Pretty sure all the noise came back to this. It may have been locking up at various speeds, always hit right on a particular mph/rpm when it would start squealing.

[Xbird]

I'm in a bit of research mode now. New alternator arrived with a much smaller pulley on it. Old pulley is bent, shaft is true, bearings are roached. The old alt also has an external regulator mounted on it to make it a one-wire type that looks like a prior owner may have done given its "newness" compared to the alt. itself. (prior owner ran a tv repair shop) The ext. regulator has a blue wire going into the alternator itself that's connected into the center winding of the three windings.  the other two wires off the external go to the field spades on the alternator. At the crossroads now of trying to source an alternator with the correct pulley on it. Really prefer not to go back to a full on original externally regulated set-up since I think most of the original chassis wiring and regulator to do so is long gone.
Pulley is about a 3-inch dia. --got the old one sitting at NAPA, will be talking with them later.
Anyone know of a bolt-in, one wire type of 60-100 amp? Don't care if it's GM etc.   

[Rickf1985]

Sounds like something that he built himself. Alternator pulleys are all pretty much the same size. I am wondering if he also modified that? Maybe an old generator pulley?  The single wire conversion alternators are all over the internet, just google one wire alternator. I would even try "one wire alternator conversion for Dodge 44" and see what comes back. The GM style one wire alternator are about as adaptable as anything out there with just two mounting points. You should be able to mount it to your existing mounts without too much trouble.

[Warren]

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/onewire-threewire.shtml

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

That sounds like a Tuff Stuff Alternator or their Conversion kit (7530B; Youtube) was used to convert a stock alternator.

Google

[Xbird]

yes, it is definitely something the one PO put together, a 74 dodge alternator, 3 to 1 wire conversion and pulley swap seems to be what I have. I'm suspecting that the swap is the reason for the bent pulley, and the bent pulley led to the wasted bearings. The pulley is a 3-1/4 diameter. Getting an alternator with the right size pulley is my main concern right now.

[Xbird]

ok, with the little bit of time i've been able to give this lately, the alternator is beginning to drive me up a wall. Using the part number i provided off of what was in it, Napa gave me one with a smaller pulley, which i shied away from initially. parts guy there kept forgetting to look up one with the larger pulley or anything different so i brought the smaller pulley one home with me today.

Wired in the regulator conversion (discovered lovely hack-trimmed case bolts that the ends started chewing up the case threads as i removed them) wormed it in there and found that it hits the head and the belts can't even be put on it. I had to position the front alt. ear in front of the bracket and the adjuster bracket also hits one of the alt. case bolt heads. Pivot point maxed against the bracket and belts wouldn't go on.

So, after that fun setup, install and remove session and staring down the one dave linked, i see i have my hands on what is probably called the squareback style even though it's basically round. Only a little of the winding frame shows between the case halves, unlike the original and the linked one.

Running out of time and still have trailer brakes and bearings and race rig work to do.     

What's bugging me most is that the first pic above looks correct, but on Napa's site, when you click on the 2-groove pulley version, the picture shows what looks like the one i've got my hands on now. fat case version.

FWIW, the 3 to 1 conversion is a transpo D7018

[Xbird]

Got two on the way to a friend's auto parts biz. Luck of the draw "parts number consolidation" is what he says I'm up against since both types can cross over many of the applications. Hopefully get the right type this time. 

[Xbird]

ok, now I'm stumped. got correct alternator. Spent some time making the block to ear and ear to ear mounting bushings. alignment good to go.

Wired in the transpo per the previous alternator, and get 20V output. (6-ga + cable to battery)
Grounded alternator case, no change.
Pulled 1 field wire and got a drop to 17V output.
Both fields off but the positive of the transpo connected to the output stud and I'm still in the high 15s. 
Removed the + of the transpo, and the cable run to the battery so only the sense wired is connected and ran both the old voltage regulator (found the old harness taped off and back along the valve cover) and tried a new one and still getting 17v output.

Any chance that this alternator may be an A-series and the cause of too much output voltage?