Why every time I touch my GM alternator ....

Express in specific electrical terms exactly what it's doing right or wrong.

Unless you are into welding your own brackets, you're probably stuck with a Delco alternator... made by robots, but watched by union labor... my first time thru the Delco-Remy plant in Anderson, IN, in the mid '60's, was a stunning revelation of union waste :-(

Is the regulator internal or is it now part of the ECU? In either case you can roll your own if you have no qualms about disassembling and cutting things out ;-)

And set your posting wrap at ~70 characters. ...Jim Thompson

Buy a Japanese one, with the matching car around it?

On my Chrysler making my own brackets was the only way to keep it from vibrating off and falling out of the car. They had used aluminum at a location where that was clearly not appropriate. Pathetic.

Are their engineers also union?

Nowadays you really, really need to know what you are doing when messing with this kind of stuff in cars.

No need to duck and run. I drive either an Infiniti Q45 or a Nissan Frontier PU.

In the past I've had to form my own brackets... no welding, just bolt-ups.

I don't think so... just the assemblers... UAW.

Just unplug the alternator and see if the car will still run. If it does, modify to suit. If it doesn't, figure out how to trick the ECU into thinking the alternator is still connected ;-) ...Jim Thompson

With luck you'll hear some click, then *phut* and the service light on the dash comes on. Turn key to start engine, nada. Message shows up on dash LCD saying something about fatal defect in this, that and the other module and to bring the check book.

Just looked in the Q45 shop manual... three connections to alternator, ground, battery plus, and a connection from ignition key to turn on the regulator which is contained in the alternator housing... exactly as I'd expect. ...Jim Thompson

Many Japanese cars are built with a comforting simplicity and modularity, mine as well and it was one of the reasons why I bought it. However, nowadays there could be a MC33099 in there (did you design that PWM chip?).

Once I saw a design with a TMS320 and that gave me the goose bumps. Not sure it it ever made it into a vehicle but if you muck with one of those chances are the dash warning light will remain on and the check book has to come out.

BTW, the modularity of Japanese cars is a reason why they are stolen so often. Chop shops part them out and sell all the ingredients for much more than the whole car would bring in on the black market. Same concept as some corporate takeovers ;-)

MC3xxxx series stuff came long after I left (1970).

Anything they could put into an alternator you can rip out. No problem.

Infiniti's are way down the list for thieves... around here they prefer F150's ;-) ...Jim Thompson

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

You're stupid Jim Tdumpson, the height of F150 is what makes thing easy for the thief like you to steal/claim the reason falsely.

noise following each turn I make, even on a brand new one like this one:

Can you recommend a cure for me? What should I look for to replace this wonderful alternator?

...well...."GM" now stands for Government Motors, so you need Congress for help..

Actually there are FOUR connections... it features remote sense...

Automotive guys always had weird ways to draw diagrams. Are there two batteries or is the one on bottom left the same as the one on top? Reference designators would be kind of helpful but it might be another decade until that concept makes it into this market ...

No, I definitely still don't want a car with lots of electronics in there.

More frontal area to smash into convenience stores ;-)

-- "Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it." (Stephen Leacock)