Finally replaced my son's 59 Imperial generator w. an alternator.

["Joseph St.Lucas" <jstlucas@xxxxxxxxx>]

To those that have followed the story last year, the boy's generator
burnt out after having the engine rebuilt, about 3 days afterwards.
Got a new battery, new voltage regulator, rebuilt the generator ($100),
burnt that one out after 4 days or so. And YES, the darn thing was
polarized.  Got it rebuilt one more time, died days later.  Took it
back
to the garage that did the work, they had it rebuilt, burnt out.  Ok,
this was getting annoying, especially after all the ground connections
had been cleaned and de-rusted.  Eventually found a one-wire alternator
on ebay for $30 plus $15 shipping, does about 60+ amps, which'll be
more than the 35 amps the generator put out.  The 80-100 amp
alternators
were a lot more and he didn't need the extra amps cuz he doesn't have
a sound system in it.  Well, if you consider the factory am radio to be
a sound system...
Made a mounting bracket out of 1/4 in. steel, about an inch wide by 10
inches long (needs to be cut back), had it bent the "proper" angle,
used the original generator mount as part of the assembly, got a 
slightly smaller belt, and away she went.  I used the armature wire as
the connection to the battery, through the dash meter, and moved the
armature wire at the voltage regulator to the battery terminal.  If it
won't hold the current, I'm sure it'll burn out and let us know.
But a couple of weeks of this and it's holding fine  (where's the
wood to knock on?).  Spent about $5
for new hardened bolts for mounting it all, $8 for the belt, so total
I'm out under $60 including a jig-saw blade or two.  Yes, I used a
stinking jig-saw to cut the 1/4 steel, slow but it worked.  And a drill
press to drill the holes.
The fun part was trying to figure out how to mount the silly thing to
begin with.  The single-pulley belt lines up with the front-most belt
of
the two-belt system, and since the air conditioner is dead, one belt
ought to be fine.
I'm not an html expert and there's probably better ways to have done
this, but pictures of the generator and alternator are posted at
http://members.cox.net/jstlucas/imperial/index.htm
if anyone is interested.  And I'm still darned curious as to what was
making the generator burn out after a few days, but...
And this entire installation left the original generator mount and the
wiring and the voltage regulator available should the generator ever
work it's way back into the car.

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