Replacing the Voltage Regulator inside a 1983 Chevy C10 Alternator - Repair It, Don't throw it away!

ladies and gentlemen this is Joe's classic video games back with another cool truck repair video for you today usually we do arcade game videos pinball machine videos but as I was driving home last night my truck started acting up so basically the alternator you know the the ammeter was going a low and then high and low and high kind of crazy so my thoughts were the voltage regular most regulator must be going out and on a Chevy of this year or anywhere near this year it's got the voltage regulator inside the alternator so usually what you do is you just swap the alternator but I thought since it's going low and it's going high it's pretty much got to be the regulator right you'd think so I drove it back to work today and it didn't go how much but it stayed low most of the time which is basically means you're just driving on your battery but I made it to work and so now I've got the stop by the parts store got the voltage regulator and I'm gonna take the alternator off and see if it's how easy it is to swap that voltage regulator and so we'll we'll check it out so I'm gonna play first video that filmed real quick while I was driving up here of it tripping and then I'll show you what happened at the parts store and then we'll come back and talk about the alternator a little bit I don't know how well you can see that needle but basically it's sometimes I go real low sometimes it'll go even high last night when I was driving home it got up to you know maybe around 16 volts according to the needle I don't know if it's actually doing that but the lights were moving with the needles so I think I think it was so basically usually it's low like it is now but sometimes it goes up really high which is dangerous I'm afraid it's gonna burn up my AC unit if I turn it on or anything like that so I'm trying to I'm trying to get to the parts store it fries something but normally it just stays low and fits I think I'll be alright a little bit longer I've got about three miles of driving left to do and I'll be at my shop where I can actually work on so since it's going low and high I believe it's just the voltage regulator I don't think it's the entire alternator because it's the alternator is only a couple of years old might not even be that old I think it's just the bolt the trigger or something just for giggles I'm gonna try swapping just the voltage er so I made it to the parts store and I'm parked right next to John Wayne so I like Oh Riley you can go to your favorite Park store obviously but I think they sell just the voltage regulator that goes inside the alternator so I'm gonna try to buy adjust that and if that doesn't fix it all drive back and buy the alternator now of course the risk of driving it like this is it's gonna kill your battery can you drive it on your battery but I'm right down the street from my shop so if I can get the truck started again I think I can get over there and get working on it and I've got a battery charger there okay so on mine the operator is right up here on the front very easy to get to I'm going to that after I got at home this morning before I left I unplug the little wires here on the side I believe one of those excites it so it turns on the voltage regulator and then one of them is for the ammeter for voltmeter or whatever it is on the dash so I tried unplugging and re-plugging it just make sure it wasn't a bad connection everything looks good and then I drove to work and it's still acting up so I think the voltage regulator which is what this plugs into inside the alternators bat so I'm going to take the alternator off take it inside and we'll check it out and see what's going on if I if I can't fix it with the voltage regulator I'll just have to get a new alternator so you probably take one taking one of these off before if you're watching this video but if not there's just a little plug that goes here that unplugs there's one wire that goes here and then the way it's grounded is through this big huge bracket so there's a big bolt that goes through here and goes into the head of the 350 and then there's a little bolt up here that goes on the on the bracket so basically the bracket goes in front of it and the bolt goes through here to hold it in the net that's the one that you can move by twisting this move this out to make your belt tighter so the way I'm going to open her up is through the time-honored tradition of taking screws out until the thing comes apart so I think I have to take this bracket off first and then it looks like there's little screws on each corner so we'll take out a part it looks to me like the voltage regulator is screwed in right there but of course from the inside so I'll take the bracket off and take those bolts out and we'll see what we got that took the back off and when I did here's what we got inside and it looks like that's the voltage regulator that I've got so we're gonna check that out the hard part is going to be getting that spring loaded brush back in there I don't know how the hell I'm gonna do that then I'll figure out something I'm sure it has got to be a trick to it maybe you're supposed to do it the other way or something maybe you should you're supposed to take the pulley off and do it that way I don't know we'll figure it out so here's the part that I got which is an exact match it looks like - that part down under there underneath this where the brush is and it was I saw about the the only one that it stock was standard brand which is where did I see that thing was $33 standard motor products incorporated Northern Boulevard Long Island City New York look at this mm-hmm I want to add what would John Wayne think so here's the old one it looks perfectly fine but who knows I guess there's a bunch of stuff inside of it a new one we'll swap it in and see if that fixes it I have to put the I have to put the brushes back in with their Springs and everything there's a spring in there that holds them in place and then I have to figure out a way to get dim to where they'd like if they stick out too far this won't slide down but it looks like since the lips smooth I guess if I get them pushed in and once I get them past there they'll be all right it's a whole mess with him see what happens but we'll go ahead and try to put it back in and see if we can get it all back buttoned up out supposed to be okay so I got it in there and I got the brush thing screwed back on and then I figured out a trick so there's these two little Springs and the brushes have to go in there the brush has come out and the springs push them up against this this is upside down obviously push them push the brushes up against that so the problem is if I'm going to put that back down in there the brushes will stick out because they're on the spring and how do you get them to hold back out of the way while you put it in they design this little if you look real close in that white thing that the brushes go in right there there is a little hole and it goes all the way through and so what you can do and what I did we should take a little allen wrench and you stick it through that hole in the bottom you get the spring and the brush behind it and you stick it up through it all the way through it and it holds the brushes back out of the way well she was a little brighter let's see if I can alight on it yeah yeah so the allen wrench is sticking all the way through the hole in the bottom and everything and holding both of the brushes back so after i put d i can't remember if it's the rotor or the stat er right after i put it back in place i can simply pull that allen wrench out of the bottom and now the brushes will go forward and touch what it's supposed to touch so I'm gonna put it back together and let's see if that's as easy as it seems guess I screwed it back together you got to get it make sure you got it lined up right to make sure that everything is exactly in the same because you can do it in all four ways make sure it's in the same position it was and then I'm gonna pull this out I mean let's hear if we can hear the brushes click into place there's one oh there's the second I can't really see it so we'll just have to assume that that they did okay someone put the bracket back on it and we'll put it back on the car the truck just for comparison here's the two alternators for that truck so rebuilt Ultima 78 and 78 bucks that's the one to keep in the store a rebuilt best test is 56 or 57 and I have to order that one and then the voltage regulator they have a master Pro number 20 but they have to order that one and then they had the standard ignition one in stock for $34 but it's made in China okay so I'm ound it back in the only thing I noticed different was this plug on the side doesn't go on there quite as easy as before it's because I don't think it's that thing that I mounted it's perfectly centered it's a little bit lower so I don't know I got it in there the best I could so hopefully it's not touching something it shouldn't but how the plug does go on it so I put the plug on put the wire back on the back tension the belt back up bolted the two bolts back in and then I put the hot wire back on the battery I don't know why they did the battery like in the truck was like this when I got it look they put a side post I guess I can change it pretty easy good enough maybe I ought to swap that one of these days look it just goes to the bracket on the alternator and then this little one goes over here to the firewall alright so we got it on I'm gonna start it up and we'll see if the truck blows up alright so we're sitting here at the ignition on I'm gonna start it up it's got a loud exhaust leak right underneath the driver's door so might be too loud for you but we'll see what happens all right well I like that so it's a little high right now but that's that's gonna be because the battery's trained a little bit did you saw I was driving around with a dead battery so unless it starts doing what I was doing again I think maybe we're good let me turn the arrow on us do that now we're just sitting here idling so you we're good man I'm happy happy you get the idol up a little bit I think we're good all right so there you go that's how you can replace just the voltage regulator without replacing the entire alternator so but you might want to if you're gonna you know I didn't really have any choice I was stuck where I could just go buy the parts place and I kind of needed to do it right now because this is the vehicle I'm driving but if you got time you might want to check it napa they've probably got the AC Delco one or you may be able to order they seed oka one or if there even is an AC go : you might be able to order an american-made one somewhere or you might not isn't that the way things go so leave your comments below hope this helps you if you're trying to fix your alternator instead of just continuously replacing the damn thing and if you like arcade game videos check out our channel we got a whole bunch of them leave your comments below give us a thumbs up for taking the trouble to film all this for you and I hope you enjoyed the video