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Posted By Discussion Topic: Alternator conversion bracket 52 F-1     supereal 02-26-2010 @ 9:16 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 My alternator is on the 59AB engine in my '47, and other than having to make a new, smaller pulley, it just bolted on. We have built a number of 8BA and 8RT engines, and the alignment of the pulleys is always tricky to get both belts on the 8BA running straight. I suspect the root of your problem is the wide belt setup on the 8RT. The easiest way is probably to use 8RT water pumps, if you haven't already, and the 59AB belt setup. Otherwise, a bracket will probably have to be fabricated. That takes time, even if you have a plasma cutter. An alternative is to make an offset pulley. We made smaller pulleys on some one-wires to increase rotor speed and allow earlier "kick on". Quite frankly, we are not impressed with the one-wire alternators on 6 volt cars, after much experimentation. When electrical loads began to increase, car makers went to a sensing circuit to control alternator output. This is a direct connection to the "hot" side of the battery, minus the system load. When the battery can't keep up, this circuit increases alternator output to achieve a balance. One wire units depend mostly on rotational speed to provide current. On relatively slow turning flatheads, one-wires are no better, and probably worse, than a generator in good condition. alanwoodieman 02-26-2010 @ 8:31 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 868 Joined: Oct 2009 we put an alternator on a 239 engine in a 35 coupe, we had to mill the bracket (the face on back) to move the bracket back 1/8" to alighn the pulley with the water pumps.  It was easy and quick and solved the mount problem.  The other problem occurred with not enough voltage out-put to charge the 12 volt battery.  A smaller dia. pulley will be mounted to speed it up so it will hopefully charge properly. One wire GM alternator was used. I talked with my auto electric rebuilder and he has suggested using an industrial engine alternator, smaller,and turns faster. 52Flat 02-26-2010 @ 8:15 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 3 Joined: Feb 2010 Just a follow up. I got the bracket from Certified Auto Electric and it sticks the center pulley out to the 3.5 inches. I called Dick and he buys his brackets from Certified. I called Certified and told them their bracket doesn't work on the truck eng. and they said well at least its only 1/8 inch off instead of 1/2 inch or more like some other companies. The bracket base where it mounts to the truck, the new pulley and the alt. fan are all the same dimensions as the old set up. I'm using a GM 12si alt. which has the standard 2 inch mounting boss. The wishbone part of the bracket that mounts to the alt. is 3/8's. I was looking into maybe a 1/8 more narrow pulley (these are a full 7/8's thick), but I have heard it is non existant. Superreal, I have 2 belts with double crank pulley and offset/long water pump shafts. This is what everyone refers to as the wide belt system. It is 5/8's or 9/16's where as the passenger car had 3/8's. and short water pump shafts. At least that what I've been reading. Don't have a car engine to look at, but my truck has a 5/8's belt and a 3/4 belt. M Joiner This message was edited by 52Flat on 2-26-10 @ 8:21 AM supereal 02-16-2010 @ 1:16 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 My mount came from the place where I bought the alternator a number of years ago. Mine just bolted on. I had to make a smaller pulley for the alternator to give it a bit more spin at low speeds so it would kick on. If there is a mounting problem, I suspect it arises from the difference in the alternator, itself. You might inquire at Patrick's. Pat Dykes has sold alternator set ups for a long time. The number I have is 602/836-1117. Almost always, conversions require some modifications to get the belts in line. 52Flat 02-16-2010 @ 12:23 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 3 Joined: Feb 2010 Well, thats the opposite of what I've been told up until now. Speedway and The Hot Rod Co. both have disclaimers on there sites that the alt. will have to be cut if used with their slingshot on a wide belt system. I've called Speedway and spoken with the flathead guy and he verified it twice. He can't explain why, but he assured me it was true. Where did the bracket that you used come from? I have spoken with Certified also. One of the owners got out a bracket and alt. and compared measurements with me. It seems the brackets put the center of the pulley at 3 1/2 inches and the stock measurement with the gen. is 3 3/8 inches. I got a guy with the narrow belt car engine that used the bracket from CAE and reports that it lines up perfect with no mods and I have a guy with a wide belt truck system like mine that also used the CAE bracket and reports perfect alignment. Problem is, they both measure 3 1/2 inches. This message was edited by 52Flat on 2-16-10 @ 12:30 PM 37RAGTOPMAN 02-15-2010 @ 11:11 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1958 Joined: Oct 2009 Certified AUTO ELECTRIC, say they have ALTERNATORS for FLATHEAD from 1932-1953, did you try them,? there number is 1 888-597=8278 BEDFORD OHIO, they also advertise in the V8 TIMES, I bought one for my 37 and it works great,charges with no problems, 2 years no problems, hope this helps 37RAGTOPMAN supereal 02-15-2010 @ 9:50 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 We have put the alternators on flatheads using the slingshot bracket with no problems if they are the wide belt engines. Where the problem arises is when the 8BA narrow belt type is used. These use the offset water pump pulleys and the double sheave crank pulley and two belts. We have moved away from the one wire GM-type conversions. They tend to be slow turning on unless the engine is revved up, and don't keep up with heavy loads, such as headlights, etc. They are certainly easy to install, but without a sensing wire that connects the regulator directly to the battery post, they really are not much, if any, improvement over a good generator. That circuit tells the generator to increase output as necessary because it doesn't have any voltage drop such as the output has while feeding the system. You need to see 14-14.5 volts at the battery when the engine is above idle and heavy loads are applied in a 12 volt setup, or about half that on 6 volts. 52Flat 02-15-2010 @ 9:36 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 3 Joined: Feb 2010 Anybody know what bracket works for the 239 truck engine? I found 5 co's that make slingshot brackets. Two of these co's tell me that the brackets won't work on the truck as they have wider belts and longer water pump shafts. That the alt. must be cut down at the mounts to move the alt inward. Trying to make sense of that also. But, I meausure 3 3/8's inches from my original gen. bracket where it meets the intake to the center of the gen pulley. Several folks that have the alt. conversion bracket installed tell me that they measure 3 1/2 inches. So, this confirms the previous statement that the alt. would need to move inward on the truck setup to align the pulleys. Anybody with any knowledge or experience with this? I have joined several forums and called many flathead shops and parts dist. and nobody can tell me for sure where these brackets will put a GM si style alt. on my engine and why. One co. says it will need to move out, Two others say in. Two did't know there were two different sized systems for the 239. Thanks, M Joiner This message was edited by 52Flat on 2-15-10 @ 9:40 AM

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