Alternator shaft rethreading

[Rot 911]

For what it is worth I had the same thing happen to the alternator on my '72 911. I couldn't find the metric die anywhere so I did exactly what Stephan did. I went out and bought the U.S. equivalent which was either 5/8" or 15/16" (I still have the die out in my tool chest if anyone is interested). Cut the new standard threads and it worked just fine for the 3 years I kept the car.

[boyt911sc]

This die is a common metric die you could purchase from MSC, McMaster, Grainger, etc. Just bought one a few weeks ago for less than $20.

TD

[1980 911 sc]

the thought of having a car with metric and nonmetric fasteners makes me cry. Your friend will not own this car forever and if you cross thread a different thread on the shaft the next owner will hate you and your friend and most likely do some sort of redneck vodoo thing on both of you....

If you dont recommend to your friend a method a machinist would use, IMHO you are leading him/her down a dark and horible path. that could very well put them in teh position of buying a new alternator.

Come on steve, didn't you drop like 40K on your gold plated non-metric porsche?

[jmz]

this thread is pretty funny. (pun intended)

I dropped mine about 15 years ago and mushroomed the shaft. My redneck fix was to cut the end section of the alt. shaft off. ...it worked then and is still working today.

I can't see what the problem with taking the alternator to a standard alternator shop would be though.

[rusnak]

Steven:

Your point is well taken. I personally have no problem taking things to shops when I have a problem. I don't go to redneck shops for wheel alignment for example, or oil changes. But smog checks, I go redneck all the way.

The car that I'm trying to help is way beyond the point where mixing fastenters would create bad ju-ju. It is in a sad state, and I think my efforts are probably the best thing to happen to it for a long time. The mechanic who did the work is a total redneck but he retired with a bad case of lung cancer. Since he's no long for this world, my friend is sort on his own to get things straightened out. I'm only involved because I have a strong belief that it's important to help people when you can.

It helps to know that someone else did the 5/8 inch method. It's only removing .20 millimeter of material, so I don't think it's too severe. Going to 15 millimeters is more severe, and like I said, it's problematic finding a 15mm nut.

[Mike D.]

So, does anyone know where to get the 16m x 1.0 nut?

Really, i need to know...

[rusnak]

Mike, sending IM