Alternator off drive shaft?

I've been wanting a pic of your setup for awhile. do you just drive the alternator, or do you have other accessories in back?

 

The alternator sits on the top of the bell housing behind the distributor. This is a long bell Hemi. An access cover is removed from the inside of the car for service (Just like an engine cover on a van). Belts are replaced by removing the 3 torque converter bolts, sliding the torque converter back and fishing the belt over the flywheel and through the slot in the top of the bell housing. This sounds like a lot of work for a belt change, but it's a hell of a lot easier than changing a belt on some of the new cars that I have worked on! Credit for the machine work goes to my Dad. I just came up with the idea…

 

I only drive the alternator. I use an electric fuel pump. Also I use an electric coolant pump mounted under the car on the frame. It was intended for a SBC. I chose the SBC pump because this makes the availability of a replacement pump easier when I'm out on the road. The pump is very reliable. I haven't had one problem with it in the 30,000 or so miles I have put on it. I just made brackets that the pump bolts to and hoses off of the brackets. Then the hoses route to the engine / radiator...




Yeah.. I know.. it's dirty under there...

 

http://www.racemate.com/ makes the alternator in a water pump pulley -


A little pricy from what I recall - Other ideas - the old Mercruiser 470 IO engine used an alternator/harmonic balancer setup - might be able to retrofit to another combo (4 cyl, 170 Hp, basicly 1 head off of a 460 ford)

Rear mount off flywheel would work - just gear drive it...

 

As we can see, there's lots of neat little ways to run a discreet alternator!

I had considered doing it as loudpeadal did with the pulley on the flexplate, and then there was also a design I came up with using a small (motorcycle or import) alternator driven by a rubber wheels off the torque converter, but that wouldn't work well in the rain!!

Another one of my ideas involved turning the alternator around and mounting it in front of the crank pulley, driven off the inner top edge of the pulley by a rubber wheel set-up. Then, I'd use an old headlight bucket backwards to cover the alternator, look like a bullet in front of the crank pulley.

In a typical hot rod with minimal accessories (headlights, tail lights, brake lights) you don't need an alternator running all the time to keep your battery charged. A decent automotive battery will last a while in a light load application such as that, especially in the daytime. In such cases, a driveshaft driven alternator would be fine.

Check out circle track suppliers for reareand yoke pulley parts...many roundy-round racers run cooler pumps off the driveshaft, so the parts are available over-the-counter, especially for nine inch Fords.

 

That has got to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen! What a great idea!

 

Im trying to do a similar app, but with the Pwr Steering pump, and eventually the Alternator.
I saw an ad on a online rod shop for a universal electric pwr steering pump for remote locations, Damn if I Can find it again. Scoured the net, and the link I have is broken. I can’t find any other info out there. I remember it being billet, and a bit pricy. I think this would be the only billet piece on my car and hidden at that. Thanks for the ideas on the Alt. Apps. “Neat and clean"

 

These water pump alternators only put out 34 amps or something according to the file I read. What do you think the minimum would be for street use?

 

We used one on our dirt car, and it ran well for a long time...couple of years. Powered the entire car, and we never had a problem with it. I always thought it would be neat on a street car.

 

Saturn Vue, and some of the new hondas run electric power steering pumps. I am not sure what you would be putting power steering on that the steering gear its self would not ruin the cleaned up look you would be going for. I have no knowlage of the honda set up, but the saturn pump should run any rack/saginaw style steering.

 

my `66 chevy belair had a 37 amp alternator from the factory. the car lasted for over 130,000 miles of driving between three owners...and as far as i know, never had any battery problems. but the car had no air , no power windows , no high amp radio , etc

i think a basic car with just ignition , headlights/taillights , electric gauges...34 amps would be fine. just put in a heavy duty battery for starting

 

it's not the prettiest thing around...or cheapest...they want a little over $500. But it would unclutter a roadster engine bay nicely. I stole a picture off racemate.coms acrobat file. if you aren't running power steering i guess you would need an idler pulley?

 

OK, how's this:

I have a chevy in a V-drive boat that we installed a crank driven alternator on. It was very simple and it came as a kit. Here is a link to the one for the chevy, this is my inspiration but not the complete solution:

http://www.rexmar.com/page305.html

But since I have a fan on the end of my 59AB flathead crank, I would need to set up the little 6v tractor alternator so that it's shaft extended out the back and that way I could simply install the alternator as part of the shaft from crank to the fan. Obviously, I would need the bracketry to hold the alternator in place while the shaft in the middle spins with the crank and fan. There may be enough room between the crank pulley and the fan to do that with those little tractor alternators (I have about 5 inches between fan and crank pulley but the fan could be even closer to the radiator if I needed a little more) And I bet most people would never even see it was there. No belts either. I know it would not charge as well since it would be spinning slower that you would want but it would still charge decent when at speed, wouldn't it? Whacha think?

 

Hey...maybe you could just bolt some big horseshoe magnets to your flywheel...and wrappitup with a fieldcoil...and use that to power a multicoil ignition and maybe your headlights...and just start the thing with the handcrank...I wonder if that's ever been done??

 

I just finished mounting mine on saturday, I'll try to get pics soon. Gotta get my home computer connected first.

 

what if you had an electric motor that drove a remote mounted alternator? I'm sure ther amp draw from the motor would be less than the output of the alternator. Maybe that's crazy, but i'm just throwing that one out there. If it worked you'd have your cake and eat it too

 

Don't some lawn mowers use a starter/generator combination?

Ought to be some way to do that on a car.

 

Wouldn't this be a perpetual motion machine and make you a billionaire??

 

"Don't some lawn mowers use a starter/generator combination?

Ought to be some way to do that on a car"

It's been done...most famously on early Dodges. An absolutely huge device (looks like a 3X life size car generator!) driven by flat belt served as both 12V generator and starter. I met a really old guy once who said the thing was so powerful he could drive his parents' Dodge home running silently on the starter when he was sneaking in later than allowed...
Apparently, the design problem is reflected in the size of this thing...I've been told that the requirements of the double duty device make the size necessary--don't know why.

 

My helicopter has a starter/generator. It is gear driven, (key phrase = gear driven) - it bolts onto the turbine engine gear case and has a relay that switches it from starter to gen mode after the engine spools up over about 55%. The gear teeth on an auto starter and flywheel would last about a minute in this type of application ( to say nothing of the excessive drive ratio) and you'd be so happy when they failed, as the noise would drive you to insanity beyond this time frame.

Were I to mount an Alt. on the drive shaft, I'd put it at the transmission to reduce the unsprung weight and I'd flange the pulleys to accomodate the movement of the slip yoke.

 

Rather than putting the extra belts around the driveshaft why not hide them around the tail shaft of the tranny. No balence problems then. Gumpa

 

Here they are!!!

 

T-town
It should work, what rear end are you running? We ran a setup like this on our Stock cars on the quick change rear. I believe there is a kit for 9" fords also. Look up Port city racing, Left hander, or Coleman racing products. these are reputable circle track supply houses. Even if you are running a different rear you should be able to adapt something. It will be a start, i wont gaurantee they will have specific answers for you, but if you can hammer-tofit-and-paint-match then you will be in business. Dry cell is a good idea!
My 2 cents/ take-it or leave it!

 

back from the dead. Anyone else do this with results or pics?

 

See the thread you started Classicdreamer.

 

one word. magneto.

although i have always wanted to try a small turbo to run the alternator and possibly the water pump. that would be cool.

 

I had one on an O/T race car with IRS. Worked like a champ (and it was a dirt car, BTW). Zero problems with moisture or mud.

 

It may have been mentioned and I didnt see it but I have seen a few drag cars use alternators off the transmission. I never knew what kind of transmission it was but the assembly kind of resembled a PTO take off. Just food for thought.

 

It's been done....go for it !

4TTRUK

 

Here's mine, works fine