One other thing to look at is where the bearings sits in the alt. body
casting. I have seen "looseness" there (on the distal/inboard/furthest
away from fan bearing).

I replaced bearing in my 90A alternator years ago, was readily
available at local industrial supply house.

Alistair

'82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/

On 23-Mar-06, at 4:04 AM, -------------------- wrote:

AAAAALLLLLLLL bearing have play unless they are preloaded.
.   The ALT. bearings are bad if you can feel any.

Jeff Oxroad wrote:

> How much play is acceptable in the Alternator bearing? I'm guessing the
> answer is none.
>
> But I don't want to replace the Alt. prematurely as it's functioning
> fine.  I
> just had the fan belt off and found the play is slight, but
> noticeable.  It
> is not enough to interfere with the functioning of the alternator
> cooling
> fan--because then even I could figure out it's time to replace.
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
> 83.5 Westy
> LA,CA
>
>
>
>