I once purchased a '91 350sdl for $2500 which I was too busy to fuss with. I ended up selling it to a former coworker for $3250 about a month after I got it.

As it turns out, it wasn't the car for her. After years of driving Honda's, she got used to the lHonda low maintenance lifestyle and just could not cope with the occassional repair these old benzes require.

In the end, she asked me if I was interested in buying the car back from her. After explaining my limited student budget, I bought it back for $1000. So it is mine once again.

This is the problem of the car, maybe someone here can help. The alternator failed on it so she got some yahoo mechanic to put in an Autozone alternator. Well, the guy put in the wrong one (from a '90 i think) and it started chewing up the belt because the pulley from the wrong alternator was 'misaligned' with the other pulleys. Anyway, I just purchased the proper alternator and will attempt to put it in soon. I also suspect the mechanic also failed to connect all the wires in the back of the alternator.

As I look at the back of the alternator, there seems to be room for 3 connections. One big one secured with a 13mm nut, a smaller one secured with an 8 or 9mm nut, and a spade with "+" next to it. The mechanic left the spade open with nothing attached to it. My question is, should something be attached to that spade? I can't find anything in the vicinity of the alternator that might fit into it.

Can anyone help?

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Jennifer
90 350sdl

Jentay,

I am not going to be of much use, other than to knock this back up to the top of the list where hopefully you will get some better help. Anyway, as I recall the 350SD you have drives the accessories with a serpentine belt. I might be wrong, but it seems to me the alternators would be the same for both years, so I checked with Fastlane (best I could do at this time of day) and sure enough they use the same alternator (F 4000-33266) and pulley (F 4050-89264). The pulley definitely looks like a serpentine belt pulley.

Anyway, if the pulley was misaligned there may be some spacers that were misplaced either when the pulley was put on the alternator, or in the way the alternator is located on the bracket.

As for the connections, I do not recall them on this car. Never diddled with my alternator once on that car. I hope someone who has taken this thing apart on your model pipes up. Good luck, Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

I could be wrong, someone correct me if I am, but I believe it is for the radio supression thing. Basically it removes electric noise produced by the alternator so that it does not transmit over the radio system. At least thats what the spade connectior with the + is for on my 83.

__________________
Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

I just did the alt on mine, the Autozone alts have a shaft from a 420SEL's alt stuck in them. So the pully will never align with the belt properly. Mine only had one big plug that stuck in the back.

Btw I got a Bosch rebuild from Fastlane and it seems to be of very high quality. This seems like the way to go.

603 owners can pretty much write off Autozone for parts, although I did score a good deal on an AC condensor from them.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200