Alternator rotor and stator clean-up...

[george mills]

Geez Gerard, you must have too much time on your hands :) I hope
you're not serious about using benzene, tres toxic to life as you know
it. I assume the alt. was working before the disassembly and you just
want to clean it up. Take the case and dump it in a pail of goo such
as gunk or similar degreaser. I've never treated windings in the stuff
so you might just use warm, soapy water for them. You don't want to
degrade the coating on the windings or the alt. will soon be defunct.
At least get new bearings, they're cheap. Don't worry about the slip
rings unless you see signs of them wearing through. The brushes will
conform to them. You can check the diode plate to be sure the flow is
only going one way, but from what I've seen of the Bosch alt. these
are pretty beefy and stand up pretty well to the nastiness seen down
low on the engine.
  I just wait until an alt. is going out or is defunct now and get it
rebuilt by the professionals, but I don't seem to have the time you
do. I've been stuck too many times with something I dismantled,
cleaned and reassembled only to have it fail a few months down the
road. However, you're the curious sort and now you know how grungy
that ol' alt. gets hanging down there off the engine.

Best regards,
Geo