Carpokes Porsche Forum

The man benefit of higher amps is a quicker battery recharge. Important if the battery is starting to fail. Driving in rain with lights, fogs, wiper(s), hvac on full, electric defrost, heated seats your electric windows won’t crawl up and down at the drive thru with your foot on the brake (lights) at idle.

The above scenario also matters when you want high amps to quickly recharge the battery from all & every accessory in use after shut down. You know the adage, better to have it and not need it than ….

The Irish have a twist on that saying: "better to be looking at it than looking for it".

FWIW, I found the Bosch-rebuilt AL-170X (OEM fitment for my 928) on Pelican today for $211 plus $100 core. As much as I love and respect a good home enterprise effort, my wallet suggests the Pelican option at least today as I share this.

Know that internet buying and prices are all over the place. It may be that Wayne has old stock, and his prices will spike up to the more 'current' market numbers when he needs to replace his shelf stock. No way to tell that from here.

That said... I swapped in a Bosch-rebuilt AL-170X while chasing some charging problems in my 928 a dozen-plus years ago now. All the measuring and testing I did said it wasn't the alternator, but I was running out of things to try. The actual problem turned out to be a ground strap. I took the opportunity to replace wearing parts and clean the original alternator carefully while the new one was in the car. Then swapped it back in, and put the new one on the shelf for future needs. My 'rebuild' sounds exactly the same as the OP @rheidtman describes for his efforts. I expect my refurbished unit to outlast me, by the way.

Bob

Do note when you go to Pelican to buy this alternator - as noted by Dr. Bob - you will find it's 'out of stock.' But, they do offer an alternate (yes, pun intended) for $1,340. So, there's that...

Actually, for anyone that has really chosen to follow or research, these have been out of stock for more than a year.

So... feel free to perform your own rebuild or I can perform at a higher level, while providing a warranty.
AND... I can also help you if you need any help when rebuilding... done this for at least a dozen folks to date.
Just doing my small part to help with parts availability and keeping these cars on the road.

Rick

as mentioned

My attempt to actually buy one from Pelican fizzled. Apparently Bosch does these in batches when they feel like it. Go with Rick's option.

I'll share a long-time philosophy on stuff like this. Do this kind of work as PM if you possibly can. Replacing bearings before they fail saves the armature windings from a lot of unnecessary vibration damage. Replacing the voltage regulator and brush holder assembly saves a lot of wear on the slip rings. Yes, you can replace those too, but getting them perfectly true and with the micro-polished finish intact probably isn't an easy task for a DIY newb. Plus all that stuff I shared about wires and connections and weak batteries still applies.