3.0L M54 engine whirring noise

[oldskewel]

All bets are off with the hammer, now.

It's a tight fit going back in. I generally remove whatever is needed so I can align things properly, and use some antiseize on all the contact surfaces just so things don't bind.

With those trips ahead of you, and your new diagnosis info, I'd say to swap in the new one ASAP. I definitely would not risk an alternator suddenly dying on trips like that. This is no longer a normal wear and tear issue.

BTW, now apparently unrelated, but here is an example of extreme slip ring wear on the Denso alternator from my old Lexus that had a notorious issue with PSF leaking onto the alternator. The copper has worn all the way through, and that patch of brown is the underlying plastic. As always happens with alternator slip rings, one of them wears a lot more than the other. That phenomenon is due to the electric field's effect on the freed copper ions. I have not done it, but @AndrewWynn did an electrical polarity swap on his alternator to shift the balance to the other one.



Second pic is the new, replacement slip rings before I installed them (not easy at all).