So after a decent length drive today my alternator was a bit noisy. Nothing too obvious but a frequent squeaky whine. The sound seemed to be from the alternator itself not the belt.

I did remove the belt and refit when I did the timing belt/water pump, unfortunately as I never really drove the car prior to the work I cannot confirm if it already made the noise, could it be caused by the belt being too tight? The car has been sat for a long time, if this is the bearings could grease potentially solve the issue or am I clutching at straws?

Assuming this is not going to go away (and realistically get worse) what are my options from here. Given my intended use of the car I cannot have a potential reliability issue so will need to solve it.

-Can new bearings be fitted to these relatively easily or is this a difficult job (to source and fit)?

-Are refurbished units available at a reasonable price or should I be bracing myself?

-Cameron (onemanmade) has kindly pointed me in the direction of this, refurbished, which would be great but I'm not 100% it'll fit my Panda?? Mine is a 1000cc SPI 93 with CAT (I think?) and having searched online by my reg seems to come up as 65amp. Though the pulley is right for my car.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/382055683422

Any advice from the Panda pro's out there appreciated, has anyone on here refurbed a Panda alternator, or does anyone have one right for my car on a shelf they may want to exchange for a selection of royal portraits?

Cheers again

My alternator started making loud whirring sounds late 2016 on my 1993 SPI. Tried spray lubricating it and I think it didn't make much difference.

I considered the changing of bearings but was told that in terms of effort etc it may be easier to get a whole alternator anyway... I had to make a 3 hour round trip in a few days so I went to a local company called APD to get a reconditioned alternator. They reduce the price if you give your old alternator in as well.

APD ask for your car details and they get all your alternator details in response to it on their system - mine was a reconditioned Magneti Marelli 65A I believe. You can probably get some cheaper somewhere else but I had to do it very quickly for my trip, so they ordered it in for the same day we went in at no additional charge and then we swapped it in the day before the trip and it worked a treat

You should be able to get it refurbished, if they haven't one on the shelf to swap.

There are quite a few places around that can swap out bushes and bearings.

It's been a few years since I used them, but there was a place what I think was inside the old DOT factory, Trafford Park.

I bet Manchester Auto Electrical will have what you need though.
Duncan Street, Salford and I know they are still there!

FDNY21 said:

My alternator started making loud whirring sounds late 2016 on my 1993 SPI. Tried spray lubricating it and I think it didn't make much difference.

I considered the changing of bearings but was told that in terms of effort etc it may be easier to get a whole alternator anyway... I had to make a 3 hour round trip in a few days so I went to a local company called APD to get a reconditioned alternator. They reduce the price if you give your old alternator in as well.

APD ask for your car details and they get all your alternator details in response to it on their system - mine was a reconditioned Magneti Marelli 65A I believe. You can probably get some cheaper somewhere else but I had to do it very quickly for my trip, so they ordered it in for the same day we went in at no additional charge and then we swapped it in the day before the trip and it worked a treat

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Can you remember what the price was for the swap to a reconditioned one? Just getting an idea at the moment as I did a round trip to Warrington today, plus a bit local (around 60 miles all in) and after about 30 the noise completely stopped (having previously been getting louder)... hoping I'd jumped the gun a bit looking at replacing it, though given we're taking it to Scotland end of June and then hopefully Spain end of July (fingers crossed) I'd rather get this properly sorted!

Spoke to my mechanic mate and he said as you deduced, not worth changing the bearings, a fair amount of work and chances are if the bearings are shot the rest of the alternator is pretty high mileage.

The noise I had was not consistent, but pretty sure it was coming from the alternator, I guess I've got a couple of weeks to make my decision on it, though working out the best bet for sourcing a reconditioned or new alternator in advance would be reassuring. I don't know how much it'd be for a brand new one but I'd obviously feel a lot more confident if they are not too much!

Goudrons said:

You should be able to get it refurbished, if they haven't one on the shelf to swap.

There are quite a few places around that can swap out bushes and bearings.

It's been a few years since I used them, but there was a place what I think was inside the old DOT factory, Trafford Park.

I bet Manchester Auto Electrical will have what you need though.
Duncan Street, Salford and I know they are still there!

Click to expand...

Good bit of local knowledge there, I'll ask about. There is also a small place out towards Heywood called Digby's my electro-plater recommended, in part as they used to re plate a load of parts for them but also as they had an alternator reconditioned there. I'll get prices, even if my alternator has stopped making a noise for good might be worth getting it overhauled. I guess having been sat a couple of years some parts might have needed freeing up a little.

you can fit an alternator from a mk1 punto to a panda. you can also upgrade the belt to a multi V belt too. basically find a scrap punto, take the alternator, belt and bottom engine pulley and just put them on the panda! theres a bit of messing around with the electrical connectors but if you can solder/crimp new ones on you are laughing.

the pandas alternator is 45amp. but punto alternators go all the way up to 95 amp.

have a look at this page of Talons thread..
https://www.fiatforum.com/members-motors/299063-john-dragon-mans-4x4-sisley-53.html
just dont bother with the original pulley like i did, just use the punto one it all fits just as well!

Yep as D M states go for a larger unit we have fitted a stilo 95 amp model . Give you an extra few amps 50 ha (£15 off eBay Used ! )

Dragon Man said:

the pandas alternator is 45amp

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This is true for quite a few of them but later ones like the Fizz and CLX used 65A I believe Still nothing on the Punto 95A one though

Phiz I can't remember the price exactly but it was under £100 I think... still was quite a lot though but had to be done to fit it ready for the next day where I'd be driving lots!

I'd probably do as John said and get an uprated one though, if you can, you can probably find one more easily for a Punto than you can a Panda so that may save you some cost as well!

Thanks for the pointers (and the in depth write up on Talons thread Dragon Man), I finally got chance to look at my now quietly working alternator today, though it is working I'd rather do my research now as I don't fancy driving to Russia with the nagging doubt that something like that could let me down!


I've taken a pretty poor picture of the alternator, though I guess the info we need here is that it takes the multi-v belt and the fan blades are external, typical really as it shows it is different from both the one originally on Talon and the later upgrade! It has the part No. Lucas LRA695 and then 63320001, though I can't find much on this online. Everything that does come up on that reference comes up with a vast list of alternative brand part No's, which hopefully means I've got a load of choice!

In terms of upgrading to a higher amperage alternator are there any negatives? I assume there must be some otherwise they would just fit one alternator to all models and keep cost down, though I guess the smaller alternators would be cheaper to produce so fitted where possible and maybe sap less power from the engine? I don't intend to run a lot of electrics on the car, though I guess some extra power points for charging batteries would be good and if I had a bigger alternator at least the option would be there for any additions in the future.

Dragon Man I know you stripped and rebuilt your replacement alternator, I'd hopefully be getting new so would not need to do this, I assume the actual connectors from alternator to car would not require any alteration? So in theory as long as the mounting points lined up and the pulley offset matched then it would just be a matter of swapping them over?

Bit of a pain really, if I was going to a yard for a used one I could either measure before buying or even take my old one to compare but as I'll probably buy online it's difficult to get the info I need.

Still at least I appear to be all good for the time being, I'd rather get this sorted though or I'll be rushing to get one sorted last minue like FDNY21!

i had to change my alternator belt today (thanks Phiz ) and while in there noticed my alternator is a magnetti Marelli 45Amp. though the 750 with carb presumably has less electric components to run so maybe thats why they uprated it

I had mine refurbished at http://www.sandcelectrical.com/ for £60.00, new bearings and diode fitted, came back looking like new.

an alternator will only take as much power as its needed. they are self regulating depending on load. i have drawn the full 95 amps (it actually managed to produce 103 amps) from talons alternator and sure enough at that level the engine actually stalled because the draw was that high.... and i have my tick over speed really low.

if your panda already has the multi V belt, you are laughing!

sadly the connectors are slightly differant. you'd need to cut them off and crimp/solder new ones on or if you can, drill them out to take the bigger bolt size.
i think the original ones on the 45 amp alternator are an M8 and the ones on the punto alternator are an M10. on talon because i am lazy all i did was drill the hole bigger in the eye crimp. you may also need to change the excite wire (battery dash light) from a female spade to a eye connector.
sounds complex but its really easy.

Talon runs a split charge system i built myself with a large battery i have in the boot (to run ham radio gear)
both front and rear batteries can start the engine, individually or load share. when the ignition is off both batteries are isolated from each other. when the ignition is on the controller probes each battery for the higher voltage and decides which one to start from (the one with the higher voltage). you can also manually switch between front, rear or both. the charge controller has a amp meter that displays the amount of amps coming out of the alternator when the engine is running. however when the engine is off it displays how many amps say the lights or radios are using from the rear battery only. (as the front battery is only there to power the ignition and starter... nothing else so it never goes flat) the charge controller also charges both batteries individually but keeps them both separate if switched to that mode. it can also link charge both together.

the down side to this is having to run huge power cables down the length of the car, the up side is that you never need to ask for a bump/jump start.

the citroen will also be getting a split charge system too (version two point ohh) ill make some changes to it and maybe actually control it with an 8 bit micro controller as the one in talon is just built on simple transistors, diodes and a voltage sniffer.

Lol so big alternators might be a little power sapping but only when they are working to charge the battery? I guess a bit of an upgrade wouldn't be a bad idea though, perhaps regards100 odd amps I might be better of saving the horses. Get what you mean regards connectors, if it's cool to drill them out from M8 to M10 then that doesn't worry me, might even have some M10 ones floating about from welding earth clamps somewhere...

The work on Talon sounds immense though clearly a very different beast from Demitry! Looking forward to seeing Talon out and about sometime, hopefully I'll get to some Panda events in the near future.

My only other concern regards fittment is the offset of the actual pulley, when you (DragonMan) changed the pulley over you also changed the offset as the old Alternator had external fan blades? I'll keep an eye out, if one comes up cheap I'll grab it and see how I get on but for the minute strangely the noise has stopped and all seems well:worship:.

internal or external fan blades, the pulley offsets are both identical when bolted on to the engine

Dragon Man said:

internal or external fan blades, the pulley offsets are both identical when bolted on to the engine

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Brillaint cheers, I'll keep an eye out for a good one then

So for reference for anyone in the future looking to do this a 105amp alternator off a 2008-2015 Fiat 500 1.2 (part 51859044) can be made to fit with a little effort. Spacing and size of fixing bolts is the same (as my 94 fuel injected panda), wiring connectors at the back need slight alteration and I needed to swap the pulley wheels over too but been out on a good test run and all good.

Ok so slightly less cocky answer regards the previous comment! I currently believe it can be done (ask me again in 1k miles) but a little more adjustment required with an angle grinder! Will post on my car resto thread