(Part 2) Best starters & alternators according to redditors

EDIT: By the way, mine is not totally stock. It is only made to look stock.
I have so many things I need to tell you about a "first off" kind of thing with the bike. FIRST OFF get new tires and tubes. Your electrical system sucks ass. The 6v wires are shit and any one of your lights will dim the other. Get a 6v "normal light" for your brake light, and make the rest 6v LEDs. Get the aftermarket headlight for the bike on Ebay it's like $45 but it will save you in the long run when you blow out bulbs while testing out your system. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Honda-XL100-XL125-XL175-XL250-XL350-MT125-MT250-Headlight-6-V-Trim-Ring-Case-/361374724763?hash=item54239cb29b:g:eAsAAOSwDk5T9bTT&vxp=mtr
As soon as you buy that, put on a 12v AC voltage regulator on your Yellow headlight wire from your stator https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087PZV5O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Your little ceramic wire resistor sucks ass and will fall apart as soon as you touch it, so take that shit out of the bike.
After that, you will need a new flasher. for your turn signals.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CKJL14/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Now that flasher is a thermal flasher, so with LED bulbs in your turn signal spots it wont flash, so what I did is put LED bulbs on my rear turn signals, and kept the classic bulbs in the front.
When it comes to your engine, don't waste time.
Buy a gasket kit on eBay, and while you are in there change your clutch plates ($35). You WILL 100% need a special tool to do that which is like $8 on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CRH18OG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Also all the oil seals on the bike. Check the engine cylinder, piston, and engine head. Replace the valve seals on in the engine head because mine were bad at 7k miles, and spewing out smoke from my exhaust. Most likely you will need to swap the piston rings, and that will cost like $50 but if you want, they sell big bore kits, and STD kits that will replace your whole jug and piston with gaskets etc for not that much more.
Check all your gears, especially your starter gear for signs of missing teeth, or bad gears. If you need any pages out of my Clymer manual, let me know. That book is the best. You will need the wiring diagram! Once I figure out how to post that, I will hook a brotha up.
Now that your engine is in great shape, and is still spitting out smoke (yes mine still is. I think they all do that at this age)
You will want to do some painting. That is your own personal mess to tackle. There are plenty of painters who will give you advice.
Other tips of advice: BikeBandit, and CMSNL are your friends to finding part numbers, then buying the parts on eBay. I have completely disassembled this bike, and the entire engine, completely disassembled is sitting in two plastic tubs in my garage while I wait for a fucking expensive starter gear to come in.
If you have ANY questions on what to buy, or what to do with your restoration. I can give you the name for what parts I used, and where I got them, like my aftermarket carburetor and shit.
Also, when you feel like tackeling the fork seals, hit me up, they are a complete bitch to change, and will take a special set of instructions to tackle without taking them to a shop.
By the way, DON'T TAKE YOUR BIKE TO A SHOP.
I hope the best to you. Maybe one day we will meet up with out bikes at one of the meet up events they have, like the one in Alabama this year!

Why not look up pictures of the alternator on the internet and compare to the one one your car?

Whatever, I already did it in 4 seconds. Here's the one for the V6, and here's the one for the 4cyl. They're not ever a little bit the same from the outside. Bolt holes don't line up. Your shop would have to do some pretty wacky stuff to get one to fit on the wrong engine.

In any case either would work if you could get it mounted as they're both 110 amps, 12 volts and internally regulated with the same regulator.

I paid $40 for a saturn sl2 starter, $46 for a buick lesabre starter, $52 for a honda accord starter. Honda civic starter $38.

What are you talking about? I have replaced quite a few and never paid much for them. Those are for brand new ones. Remans are normally like $30 or less. You just overpay.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007Y867DA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R1EMWJ0/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Premier-Gear-PG-17871-Professional-Starter/dp/B00KY0KXMG/ref=sr_1_3?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1493329518&vehicle=2004-59-752-912--1-9-5-7385-2050-1-1-2359--9-0&sr=1-3&ymm=2004%3Ahonda%3Acivic&keywords=starter

there are a few links for you. Most starters are inexpensive and those are brand new quality ones. I purchased them and they work.

97-01 are basically the same in every way. I highly doubt they would've bothered with the mounting of the starter.

You payed way too much for that starter. A decent AC delco is around $70. I would try to return that if you can.

Since the starter grounds through the body, it's definitely possible that missing bolt is the source of your starting problems. I would replace that, and also clean the battery terminals really well before blaming the starter.

Though at 13 years, it wouldn't hurt to just replace the starter anyway. Its best days are certainly behind it.

First, You need to add up all the energy youre going to use in an average day. This is critical and no one else can really do it for you.

Theres a couple of ways to do this. You can buy a kill-a-watt meter and plug a power strip into it and then run everything you would want to run in a day off of it. This is it on amazon It will tell you how many watts everything has used.

Or you can go to a solar calculator on the web.....type in all the things you will use and what their rated wattages are. If you dont know them you can find them ..usually...on a label on the back near the power supply of each appliance. Or just google and use the larger number of their examples. Type in their wattage and how long you will use them. This too will tell you how many watts youre likely to use during a day.

Second, you need to size your solar array and your battery bank.

Lets say in your calculations you find that you use 2000w a day (2kw) that would be about 60kw a month if you want to compare it with your electric bill (which is pretty low but not unrealistic since you arent using a/c or any large appliances). For solar panels the math is pretty simple. If you get 4 hours of direct sunshine you would need 500w of solar panels to get your 2000w for the day under ideal conditions and assuming no loss. (never plan for ideal conditions and never assume zero loss but you get the idea) If you think youre going to get 8 (youre not) then you just need 250w....and so on.

You will probably never achieve this, I would shoot for 60% more solar on the bus than you think need on paper. For this example I would do my best to get 750 to 800 watts of panels. It is fair complicated and very build specific to try and calculate how much loss you will incur in your wiring and in panel placement. Since you can only have two panels the simplest and most elegant solution is to just buy panels that cover as much of the space as you have left as possible.

Panels also are never as efficient as they are the first year. If you size perfectly this year in a year or two you will be undersized.

For batteries you have to consider amp hours. Watts are amps * volts. Batteries are usually 12 v. Lets continue our example that you use 2000w a day and want to have enough reserve power to cover a full day. 2000w at 12v is 167 amps. An amp hour is one amp or one hour. We can take our 167 amps and know that you need 167 amp hours because youre using it over time. Im oversimplifying but thats the smallest amp/hour rating that will suffice. A good rule of thumb is to never drain lead acid batteries below 50% so now you need a 330 amp hours battery bank at the minimum. As an example that means you would need between 3 and 4 of these For lithium ion I think its 80% so thats 210 amp hours of lithium ion.

Your battery will never be as good as it is the first week so in a year's time neither of these banks will provide enough reserve energy if you just do the minimum required right off the bat. You will have to overbuild to account for this or add later.

If you want to work backwards then its a little less elegant. Lets say your coffee maker is 5 amps but its rated at 110 V thats 550 watts. Lets assume you use it for 15 minutes so thats ~138 watt hours. Your inverter will need to draw (138 watts divided by 12 V) about 11.5 amp hours out of your battery. If you have a 100 ah battery bank, that gives you 50 ah effective use...that 15 minutes of coffee making just used over 20 percent of your battery.

Charging your house batteries off the alternator can be very simple. This is what I used Put a switch in the cab and run a wire to the small terminal. When the small pole is energized it will connect the two larger poles. Wire one pole to one battery bank and the other pole to the other battery bank, use thick wire for the large poles 2/0. When the small pole is not energized the two poles will not be connected. When you want one bank to charge the other bank turn your switch on. When you want one bank to not drain the other bank, turn your switch off.

Im partial to this brand but you may find a cheaper one.

There are dozens of gauges that will tell you your battery voltages. Here is one example if you have everything wired correctly when you flip your switch to connect your two battery banks you should see their voltages come together.

$55 on Amazon 30 minutes to install No Core charge.

https://www.amazon.com/DB-Electrical-SMT0052-Cherokee-Wagoneer/dp/B007Y86TIS/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536211903&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=xj+starter+jeep&dpPl=1&dpID=51mhapD1zKL&ref=plSrch

To my recollection (it's been a couple years), you'll just need a decent socket wrench and a set of metric sockets. Took me about half an hour to get the old one out, then about 45 minutes to get the new one in because I was a little anal about the tension. This would appear to be your alternator, and you can get a replacement on Amazon prime for about $120 here. Double-check your part-numbers first, though.

maybe this https://www.amazon.com/SOLENOID-GENERATOR-0-47100-4100-0-47100-4160-0-47100-4390/dp/B00E9FXDP6

What's it off of? The one in your picture looks like Polaris part (but only for the Fuji built engines so it may be in other japanese designs). If it is, then yes you can disassemble it. If you look at the lower left where the silver shaft meet the gold colored pieces you can see the snap ring that holds it all together. Careful when you take it apart several springs and weights will come out.

Here's one just like the picture for $23 shipped. That's probably the way to go, I've never had much luck repairing one of them.

You can buy it in small quantities at any Lowes.

It's a kit intented for patching, but it's enough carbon fiber fabric to cover a keyboard, and it's under $20.

Also, you CAN buy it on Amazon. Here's a larger kit for $65.

http://www.amazon.com/Godzilla-carbonworksTM-Carbon-composites-starter/dp/B00GIUIGWA

A common issue is worn contacts on the starter solenoid causing reduced starter speed, a small reduction in starter speed can be enough to produce the symptom you have. Cheap and easy to replace

https://www.amazon.com/LarryBs-Starter-solenoid-Rebuild-Cummins/dp/B00D2C1URK

I have a PDF of a different service manual so I will try to double check everything before I do anything. Thank you for the heads up though.

I went ahead and ordered a starter motor rebuild kit. It was only twenty bucks and every source has told me that my brushes (measuring around 9-10mm) needed to be replaced. My issue now is going to be making sure all of the little pieces that come with the kit get put in the right place. This is what I ordered:

https://www.amazon.com/Starter-Rebuild-Motorcycle-GS1000S-GS1100ES/dp/B00CS8E6E8

Your starter armatures sound like they're shorting (drawing more current than the fuse will allow), and your battery is probably dying.

Take the starter apart, check for resistance between the armatures. If this is anything like the '83 shadow I did this on, it's not going to be fun to get in an out. Maybe it's easy on yours, but my exhaust pipe was in the way.

Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Starter-Rebuild-Motorcycle-Interceptor-VT500FT/dp/B00CPOPU3Q

Just because it's at 12.7 volts doesn't mean it's fully healthy.

You're, correct that this isn't related to the A/C. It's just the cabin air system and it's an easy repair. It's mounted under the dash (passenger side). The only difficult part is that its slightly awkward to reach. If you push the seat as far back as it goes and lay on your back (half your body out of the car), it makes it easier to do. Should take about 10-15 mins to do. 5 mins if you've done it before.

/u/civicjohn is also correct. Here is the part you need:
amazon link. The highest speed is a direct passthrough with no resistance. The resistor reduces the power for speeds 1-3 (more resistance/less power for lower speeds). When the built-in fuse in the resistor trips, the fan will only run on the high setting.

If this doesn't work, or the resistor fails again or the air seems to blow weakly, then its the blower motor: amazon link. If the air is weak, then the bearings in the blower motor are bad. This could explain why the resistor blew. Unfortunately the bearings in the blower motor are not serviceable so the blower motor would need to be replaced. The good news is replacing this is just as easy as replacing resistor. Same area, 3 screws.

The resistor is about $20-$25 and the fan motor (aftermarket) is about $55 from Amazon. A Genuine Honda fan motor is really expensive. Something like $450 or in that neighborhood if I'm remembering correctly. If you insist on Genuine Honda factory parts, it's worth checking a junkyard if you have one nearby. BTW, a really short screwdriver is really handy.

Probably more info than you need but if you're like me, I like to know how things work and why they fail. It may also make the repair less daunting for those who may be a little timid about tinkering with their car. Hope this helps.

.

^the ^blower ^motors ^are ^known ^to ^be ^somewhat ^troublesome.

https://www.amazon.com/Brushes-Nippondenso-Alternators-021620-2720-27370-42010/dp/B00AY219X6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466015035&sr=8-1&keywords=nippondenso+alternator+brush

If your truck is a Toyota , this is likely what you need to freshen them up. If the bearings are quiet , let them be.

the link you sent unfortunately doesn't work, would this be ok?
https://www.amazon.com/NTE-Electronics-1N5404-Standard-Rectifier/dp/B008UFXAKY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540331036&sr=8-1&keywords=400v+3a+diode

Yes, now I see that the black wire runs to the starter solenoid. It is hard to get it stuck in my head that black is not ground on this bike.

But if I go in the direction of replacing the regulator and rectifier with a combo (which I will end up doing because I want simple), the Caltric Rectifier Regulator that you posted says it only fits 79-83. Is that because those bikes come stock with it, and a 78 does not? Should I order this one instead considering it says it'll fit a 78?

https://www.amazon.com/DB-Electrical-SMU0404-Starter-31200-Plm-A51/dp/B007Y87Y46/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495398321&sr=8-1&keywords=2004+honda+civic+starter

The fit can be a bit of an issue, but having the wrong number of pins is a lot more concerning. I went here for the 1996 3.2 V6 in the LS trim with an automatic trans which gives the part number 2902766200. A quick google search of that part number and "Isuzu" shows an Amazon listing for $110 which claims to fit that car as well as some Hondas. Pretty common for a company like Isuzu to buy parts from another manufacturer. It's hard to tell, but that listing has one pic that shows four "blades" for the plug in a configuration kind of like _||_ in case that looks like yours. If you have a different model then make sure that yours matches the same part, but there is a good chance it does. If you find that the pulleys are different you can probably get a loaner gear puller from any auto parts store and scavenge your old one. If you aren't 100% sure about something it may be worth it to buy local (~$140) for ease of returns and warranty. Note that they'll charge you an extra $50 "core" charge until you give them the old and busted one.

OK, This is an alternator that op was talking about.

https://www.amazon.com/DB-Electrical-ADR0186-Alternator-Rendezvous/dp/B007Y86OUQ/ref=asc_df_B007Y86OUQ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312442771380&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13236198802898546900&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=21164&hvtargid=aud-801381245258:pla-572399110518&psc=1

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Less than $100 and super easy to replace. You don't need to be car savvy to do this repair. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, should be $300 for a mechanic to do it. I don't think that this is your problem though. If your alternator was bad, you would be having other electrical issues. Radio dropping out, battery dying ..

If it's a fuel injector, should be around the same price for a mechanic to replace. This is more likely your issue.