New to serious ecomodding, starting on Canfly

[Geofly]

Hi all,
I changed the oil in my Pontiac firefly today. Just put in 5w30 partly for the price partly to experiment. I want to see how it does with it before I switch to 0w30. I'll pump up the tires to max sidewall before I head out tomorrow morning too. I've Google mapped myself a new route to try tomorrow it's a few extra Km's but it's a side road so I can go slow and P&G if I'm feeling like it and no one should care

[MobilOne]

How many miles on your Firefly? I'd be really hesitant to go to 0w30 in an '89 engine.

[Geofly]

263000km
Do you think it would burn the oil?

[Gasoline Fumes]

Originally Posted by MobilOne

How many miles on your Firefly? I'd be really hesitant to go to 0w30 in an '89 engine.

I run 0w-20 in a 1991 Civic with 236k miles on it.

[Geofly]

So today my alternator died I was amazed how far the firefly can go on just a half dead battery, definitely going to install a cut off switch so tomorrow I'll have to drive the fusion to collage Found a place in town that sells refurbished alternators for $100 though I'll have to figure out how to get it swapped during business hours. Guess I'll be phoning my friends tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have her back on the road Thursday. Today's trip went well. I got to P&G and EOC on my new route today and millage was great. Obviously I didn't get a chance to fill it and check just how good. But I'm on track for a 450km half tank. Filled the tires up this morning they were at 25-30 psi now their at 44psi hopefully I'll have time to put some sort of air dam on when I change the alternator. It really doesn't stay warm, I'm sure the thermostat must be locked in failsafe mode.

[Stubby79]

No cheaper alternatives for an alt? Wreckers, Craigslist, etc? $100 alt on a $500 (or however much you paid for it) car is quite a punch in the face. Maybe you're in the right position to go alternator-less, if you only have short trips and can charge a deep cycle battery every day...

Don't forget to have your alt bench tested before you trade it in...

Good luck with your project!

[Geofly]

Yeah the price ratio is kind of sad, but I'd rather have good rebuilt one than chance it on a used one. I'll bench test it first. $100 is actually a really good price. My dad did a friend of his Metro just last year and it was $240+core. I'm driving 120km one way right now and I can't charge at my destination. So I would probably need 2 batteries, and a good used one is $50. I'll set up a cut out switch when I put the new on in. There's a forum on here that showed good results.

[Geofly]

So my alternator died on Monday, and in hind sight it was on its way out. I took it apart on Tuesday to see if I could make it work. And discovered the brushes had reached the end of their reach. But unlike a motor where the brushes are finished when the spring touches the holder, and you can sometimes recurve the spring to make them ware longer. These brushes are limited by their lead wire being to short for them to come out of the holder. So I found that by melting the solder, and adding a little more solder you can get the brushes to come out a little farther and thus get more life out of them. I didn't take any pictures of my soldering, I should next time. But here's a picture of the brushes so you know what I'm talking about.

After I had spent almost an hour doing this, I reinstalled the alternator, and found out it hadn't made any difference. I hooked up my volt meter to the car and ran it with the lights on for 5mins and only lost 0.02V but it was running at battery voltage 12.6v so the alternator was doing something. I think the rectifier went. The car was running with the battery light on when I bought it and the previous owner equated it to the battery being to large for the car. Being a heavy equipment technician, I knew that was highly unlikely. But since it was fine for 1000km and never showed any signs of discharge I didn't look into it. Once again in hind sight I should have I bet it would have shown me the alternator wasn't putting out enough voltage.

Good news! I was able to get a refurbished alternator today as planned. I also got a new PCV and new Spark Plugs installed them all this evening so tomorrow will be even better mileage! I also had to patch the vacuum line to the PCV I got a T and hoses to try and recreate the factory one. But it wouldn't fit.

Well here's looking forward to tomorrow. My economy numbers will be a little screwy when I fill up on Friday cause I drove about 200km without an alternator. Not only that but I push started it several times trying to make my was home, before my friend came and brought me a charged battery to drive home with. I did as much EOC as possible and drove at 30km/h for about 10km because the car would keep going at that speed if I feathered the throttle. Its interesting to see how little electricity it needs to simply run the engine.

I haven't installed an alternator shut off switch yet, I have to do some research to see how to properly cancel it with this alternator. I can't install a switch on the brush like the instuctable says. I might be able to put some rubber washers and eyelets on where the brush mounts and interrupt it that way, hmm...

[Geofly]

So I haven't had a chance to weigh my car or even get solid mileage numbers. But I couldn't help myself. I took out most of the interior I don't need, including the passenger seat. I was surprised how heavy the passenger seat was. The back seat was expectedly light.
I left the spare in for now because I haven't got a can of flat repair yet.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Those seatbelt latches also have to go.