12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

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Catbird
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12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Catbird » Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:52 pm

Thinking of upgrading my 1927 Speedster 12v system with an alternator. Gear or belt? Are the gear driven get necessary cooling?
Bill

You can dissect a Model T; but you can’t kill it!


Allan
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Allan » Tue Aug 04, 2020 12:16 am

Bill, fitting an alternator is a DOWNGRADE! ;)

Allan from down under.

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AndreFordT
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by AndreFordT » Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:06 am

If your engine is a 1927 you can easely find a good working generator and mount it on the engine the original way. No belt needed!!!

Andre
Belgium
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Tim Rogers
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Tim Rogers » Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:09 am

"Upgrading" :lol:
<o><o><o><o> Tim Rogers - South of the Adirondacks - Forum member since 2013 <o><o><o><o>

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John Warren
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by John Warren » Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:24 am

The gear driven alternator works fine.
24-28 TA race car, 26 Canadian touring, 25 Roadster pickup, 14 Roadster, and 11AB Maxwell runabout
Keep it simple and keep a good junk pile if you want to invent something :P

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kelly mt
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by kelly mt » Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:00 am

If you are going 12v the Texas T (Birdhaven) alternators work good. I'm running two of them. They cool fine with good customer service also. I'm also running a stock 6v generator with a Fun Projects voltage regulator. Works good and is a quality product.


Gonenorth
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Gonenorth » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:24 pm

I'll second Pat's recommendation. The Birdhaven unit is the best unit in my experience available out there at the moment. It required the least amount of shimming to get a great fit and has been reliable. My 6v Birdhaven alternator worked great, no issues. I did, however, remove it and replaced it with a generator I rebuilt. By going to LED lights I no longer needed the extra amps to push the halogen lights, so I went back to a generator and Regan regulator. If I had a 12 volt system, I would probably have stayed with the alternator. Stock generators can happily put out 12 volts, but at only half the rate of 6 volt units.

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GrandpaFord
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by GrandpaFord » Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:13 am

My Texas T gear driven 12 volt alternator works fine. But because of the gearing the alternator does not turn as fast as it was designed to do. This means that it will not start to charge until about 25 mph with 3:1 gearing or 20 mph with stock gearing. Since all alternators use the guts from off-the-shelf alternators, they all work the same with respect to at which speed they start to charge. A volt meter in place with the ammeter will allow you to keep an eye on the battery voltage. Running all the lights, GPS, camera, and charging my phone, the alternator will put out 15 volts at cruising speed.

I do not have any experience with the belt driven alternator but they may turn a higher rpm so that they start to charge at a lower engine speed. In my opinion the gear driven alternator is a cleaner installation. You can buy an alternator that looks like a generator if that is important to you.


Les Schubert
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Les Schubert » Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:58 am

The original T starter didn’t care about polarity when it came to rotation because of the wound field coils. Your new starter may have magnet fields and might be sensitive to polarity and rotation. I would certainly want to check outside the engine!!


Les Schubert
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Re: 12v Alternator gear or belt? Best price with quality?

Post by Les Schubert » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:00 pm

To clarify I should have said “permanent magnet fields “!!

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