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Alternator

This by far took me the most time to resolve satisfactorily. The Omega alternator is mounted on the left hand side of the engine looking at it from the front (drivers side). It’s situated below the drivers side cylinder head. It wants to be in the same location as the chassis rail so clearly it has to be relocated. I thought long and hard about where to put it :-

  • Low and to the side of the engine - absolutely no room.
  • High and to the side of the engine - there isn’t really room to put it on the drivers side thanks to the brake booster. It could go on the passenger side but I couldn’t identify any convenient mounting points to locate it here.
  • In front of the engine - There’s loads of space here.

So, if I had to mount it in front of the engine, how would I mount it & plan the belt routing? I figured there’s no way I could mount it in front of the engine the correct way around. There’s simply nothing to bolt it to. However, I did find 3 bolt holes behind the cambelt cover that were used for engine mounts when the car was in front wheel drive orientation. This gave me the idea that I could create a bracket to reverse mount the alternator. I went through several bracket shapes & lots of consideration for belt path so I could get optimal wrap around all pulleys and still maintain tension. I then went to the breakers yard and found a small, powerful alternator with the correct bracket position and the correct pulley. The one I found was off a Ford. I didn’t realise it at the time but it was a “smart” alternator that can vary its output according to the ECU but without the ECU, it runs as a 1-wire alternator outputting 90 amps.