Bad Alternator?

I saw the thread by Moze after he painted his alternator and thought I'd like to try it. Frst I tried to disassemble it, well I got it somewhat apart and couldn't get it to go any farther (the pulley was off the front too..I had forgot once already) so I got scared and put it back together. I painted it with gloss black caliper paint because it's durable and looks good, and put it back on the truck. Now my voltage gauge reads halfway between 9 and 14 and the battery light is on..did I get paint on the inside of the windings and that's causing this, or did I maybe mess it up when trying to take it apart?

I would recheck your connections and make sure there is no paint between the the alternator and the block. And check your belt.

Probably got it apart enough for the brushes to disengage. Putting it back together did you hold the brushes back?

I didn't hold anything when I put it back together...so maybe the brushes aren't where they need to be. How can I get it all the way apart to check? Thanks nathan!

Where's the alternator guy here?

You need to push the spring loaded brushes back and hold them in place with small plastic pins before reassembly. Once the halves are back together, the pins are pulled out and the brushes snap into place against the stator (?). Greg and/or Dale might have rebuilt one a time or two as well...

If it was reassembled without these steps it is possible the brush holders were damaged. You'll need a pro to help.

I got lucky and hit it on the front with a deadblow hammer and the volt gauge jumped up and it now shows its charging to like 15-16 volts. When I turn accessories on (heat, stereo, etc.) it'll drop down closer to 14, but it reads high now. Do I need to replace this thing, or will it be ok this way. My dad is from the old school and he said bad voltage regulators do that, but he meant with generators on old cars...any suggestions?

They made voltage regulators well after there were no generators. I'd like to foresee the future for you but if I was good at it I wouldn't be doing this job.

I could be wrong, but it's not good for it to be charging up to 16 is it? What problems am I lookin at by letting it be that way for a little while?

The PCM controls output rate. If it's really charging at 16 volts the PCM thinks it needs it....either because there is a huge load on it or a poor connection making the PCM think the voltage is low. You need a scan that will read IGN1 voltage in the PCM data list to continue diagnosis.

I still got my predator for scanning capabilities, I think it has that feature in the live scan. I also just got my pcm back from being tuned, that wouldn't have anything to do with it right? The wierdest thing with it is that I hit it and let it run for awhile one day and then a few days later I started ti again and it was reading around 10 volt cahrge again with the battery light on and we started hitting around on it again and this time we hit it on the back and it jumped up to 15-16 volts again. I don't understand that much about alternators, but I'm guessing I messed it up by trying to pull it apart?