Years ago when I was younger I heard or read something about someone who had mounted an alternator off of the drive shaft. I know it ain't worth a crap when you are sitting still or in park but would it work while moving? Has anyone done this and had any success? It would be cool not to see an alternator in the engine bay. Anybody got any pics?
Long time ago some guy had an Offy in his model A had mounted Alt on pumpkin with a pulley on driveshaft. sorry all I remember, I do know it was in Hot Rod, but unless you idle for hrs at a time should work perfectly IMO
i have seen that set up but not in a long time. the alt is mounted to the rear axle so it moves up and down with drive shaft.
in another life I was a car stereo guy. I remember a guy that had a van with like 20 alts driven off the drive shaft, and a PTO unit
I have a picture of one in a Model A sedan from a Billetproof a few years back. I'll try to find it when I get home....
there was a car in Traditional Rod & Kulture I believe that had a photo shoot with an alternator mounted that way looked like it had a motorcycle chain guard on it also
Ive seen many set ups..have some pictures I will try to find seems like it would work ok on a car with a small electrical load and a big enough battery and alt.. also using the best ratio for the drive pullies to energize the alt. at a low speed
Vern Tardel built a model A Tudor with a way cool installation by mounting it under floor beside driveshaft with fan belt pulley and it worked well. The car is is Fresno. Cleans up the engine bay.
I have seen this set up as well, however... what would happen in the rain or wet roads, puddles ?? just asking...... Roach
Nothing..your alt. gets wet up front too..and with a fan spraying it with water.. try this..start your car up..than take your garden sprayer and get it wet..nothing should happen if its a good alternator. Ive never had any issues when washing down an engine..i dont cover mine up.
Tons of threads on the HAMB about said subject........... If I was search savvy, I'd link you to 'em..........
I saw a special replacement ujoint yoke with a small pulley machined onto it just in front of the pinion seal. It was in a catalog and stated it was for driving a generator/alternator off the driveshaft. I believe I saw it in a circle track racing parts catalog.
http://www.jonesracingproducts.com/kits.html#frdAlt We use Jones products at my work. It's good stuff...I talked to them about doin' the alt/rear thing but, chickened out. Also Ebay has lots of V belt rear yokes. The NASCAB guys run pumps off of them. Smokey
A friend had done this on a 40 Ford Sedan project. He mounted the pulley to the driveshaft. The problem he had was a driveshaft vibration. I have always wondered about the same thing with the driveshaft mounted emergency brakes.
It was discussed here in detail http://jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=307116&highlight=driveshaft+mounted+alternator
i did it on a 1930 Ford roadster i built back in the 80's for my father. it worked just fine....of course as has been said i won't charge standing still. with a basic car it was never a problem. as soon as you started moving from a stop light it would charge again. so, if you would ask me why did it?..i would say because i could. i have never done it again since that. my advice for you young bucks is to go ahead and do it...once....so you can say you did
I've done this twice... it's easy, works fine as long as you don't sit in traffic. But what I'd like to see is the Alternator driven off the Flywheel.
If you have no power eating electrical equipment onboard and don't tend to cruise the fairgrounds or other event venues for hours on end it will work. If you have to listen to your car's sound system every time you get in the car or you have the car bagged I'd say that you will be looking for a jump or battery charge quite often with this setup. I saw it on a couple of T buckets in the 80's. One guy had it more for a look what I did thing. The other did it because he wanted a totally clean engine with no extra items hanging off of it. Both were happy with how the setup worked but they said that they tried not to get caught in traffic and didn't do any cruising around the rod run with it. If I didn't want my alternator sticking out like a sore thumb I'd get one of the small case high output units and pull it apart and paint the cases engine color so that it blended in with the engine block in the background. Tuck it way down low and close to the block and it will somewhat disappear or blend into the background on casual observation.
Why stop there? Hot glue magnets inside your tires and then wind a coil that fits inside your fenders. Drive and charge. Energize the coils with a battery and get Smokey-style (cheating) acceleration boost.
Like Yekoms said Jones Racing Products make a nice set up and also Powermaster Performance has them under Circle Track Kits. Also in San Diego you can try Barrett Engineering that builds a alternator inside the water pump pulley (619)239-0037, the web sight is www.racemate.com
I just got home from driving my hot rod with the alt on the rear end. It works fine and has for a long time.
Saw an article a while back where the alternator was under the floor and driven by an industrial flexible shaft that ran along side the engine. Solved the space problem and ran all the time the engine was running.
We run a Sprint car with a Alt mounted on the Quickchange. It's been done for years without any problems. Ran a set up like that on the street in a bare bones Model A also without any problems.
Crusty, Is this the hot rod you built the blower manifold for? Just curious, I had a fleeting thought about it for mine to help with the spiderweb of belts my motor will have on the front of it...
Thats not out of the question either. The a/c compressor cycles on and off anyway. For the short time you would be completly stopped the a/c unit would still be cooling the car.
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