Hi,

today I have made the experience that some "whisteling" from a ball bearing which I was expecting to come from the pulley of the serpentine pulley was just wrong. After I exchanged the pulley the sound was still there.

It occurs when the engine is cold. After a while it is gone, but reappears every day. The sound is awful.

So, after my afternoon under the car at cold weather I wonder if somebody ever has changed the ball bearings of the generator. ...I just wonder.

I have already ordered a generator but want to fix the bearing at the generator if it's possible. Just for curiosity reasons and because it is still working.

Thanks.

 

I replaced the bearing in my generator once. It was the generator of my 1967 MGB-GT. It was quite easy. I disassembled the case and took the front of it over to an automotive machine shop where they pressed out the old bearing and pressed in a new one. Cost was probably something like $5.00, but this was over 40 years ago.
Can it be done today? Probably, but seriously, nobody wants to bother with that anymore. You buy a rebuilt unit and turn in the old one for a core deposit. The rebuilder takes care of the rest.

 

Many thanks for your posting.

I do wonder if repairs like this would attract any other person like me. :-)

The replacement generator in new condition costs about 250 Euros and above here in Germany; a used one you can get under 70 Euros.

This is not my point even though it helps in a quick way; I was just wondering if there is simply some more...

Surely, no garage would offer you an exchange of some ball bearing in your generator nowadays for 5 bucks... Even though it might be like.. 50 bucks; it would solve the problem, but you have to go with some more. Better you buy a rebuilt-one or some used-one.

This is not solving the problem; the problem is some tiny ball bearing which is also a high-tech product, maybe made to only last for 70,000 miles, but disables your generator(if it wouldn't even bring you into a situation where you get stuck all of a sudden somewhere at some place in Ontario or Montana, far way from any civilization.)

My goal is to find out the manufacturer of this front ball bearing. I will gladly invest myself some unusual time to replace it, then. I already have ordered a new generator; so no hassle, but one day I'm going to do reverse engineering on that issue, simply to find out how much work it would be to simply fix that ole generator. ;-)

When I have this old one out I will look for those long screws that lets you unscrew the generator (as it's definitely been on your 67 MGB GT) Then.. Hello; I can tell you exactly how you solve this ball bearing problem on your 200x Sebring for maybe 10 bucks, plus 10 hours of your precious hours on your Sebring. ;-)