240ED.

YEP, all the way back from Alaska about 6000 miles. The only place I had trouble was in Billings MT because I got there late and the headlights looked like candles because the battery was almost dead. This was 10 years ago and I hadn't had the car too long so I didn't know much about it and there wasn't any Mercedesshop web site then to ask. As you can probably tell, I don't like to have anyone else work on my car, I'd rather do it myself.

Had I known about the brushes in the alternator I could have fixed them on the road. When I got home I took the brush holder out and was able to get the alternator to work by resoldering the brushes to make them able to extend slightly farther so they would make contact with the slip rings. This was just temporary fix until I installed the new brushes and they have been working ever since. I do expect I will need another set of brushes soon, though because this was 100,000+ miles ago.

Do you remember the commercials by Chrysler when they first came out with alternators about 1959? They took the battery out of a car and drove it all around the USA. Of course they never shut the engine off. The idea was to show that an alternator put out enough voltage at idleing to keep the car running. This is because of the rotating field in an alternator can be driven at a higher speed than a generator armature. Thus the alternator will put out higher voltage because it is driven faster than a generator. Ever notice how small the drive pully is on an alternator compared to a generator?



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