Good luck. I use the thinnest zip tie that is long enough, e.g., 4" long, about 2mm wide. But in your case, I think that won't be the best way to do it. I'd first try to see if my plan above works, and then drill the small hole + paperclip as the backup plan.

The new VR. The brushes will be tucked and held in place till you install. Just don’t mess with it. Look at it clearly. You will understand.

I think if I remember correctly, you can set brushes back in. Push the in fully, and slide that whole wall down. The lower arrow in your pic, that wall moves. Then you install, the wall gets pushed up and brushes pop out. It was stupid easy to install.

I think that's actually exactly the answer. Those "protector's" are actually designed to hold the brushes compressed when the cap is not removed but when it's lifted 6mm. Practice with the old one: push in the brushes and pull the cap up 6mm it will hold the brushes until you push the cap back on and they pop out. Brilliant design.

(I don't have this alternator, so my observations are based on the 120A Valeo on my 3.0i)

Yes, that makes perfect sense. One concern that may not be obvious, is that you basically get one chance to do it that way. That sliding cover must have some locking tabs inside the slides that are inaccessible. So once installed and then removed, you won't be able to slide the cover back due to the locking tabs.

Best I could manage was to slide it back about a mm or two, holding it there with constant pressure, while I used a little screwdriver to tuck the brushes barely under the cover (less than a mm of overlap / tuck).

That procedure was not too difficult to do, but it took some thinking to figure it out the first time - trying to see why it would not slide, and how the seemingly impossible must be possible.

So plan on getting it on the first time. If that does not work, the workarounds may be helpful.

Is that alternator water cooled? I'm still blown away by the new-looking slip rings.

Also, BMW_E53, since you've already got a mostly destroyed cover, how about doing some destructive analysis on it to try to find out more about the locking mechanism within those slides and how it may be possible to work around it?

That would be helpful. Let me check my photos I think I figured it out when rebuilt my alternator.


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SlickGT1 is correct the new Voltage Regulators come with the brushes pushed in from the factory. Install is very simple just place the VR over the slip rings put the screws in and click the cap into place and done! I'll attach pictures below for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVvPzwtxdrM&t=265s

This guy on Youtube at the 3:40 mark just broke the borders of the brush covers and just slid the cap off. And he actually reused the VR and sautered new brushes into his existing VR. Then he just slid the cover back over so I guess it doesn't really matter if you break the bottom of the cover as long as you can slide the cap back on.

And my alternator is air cooled

Also update: Got the alternator put back in my car and did some tests today and so far so good. Voltage is stable and mainly around 14 volts according to Test 9 in the OBC. Hopefully that stays the same for good lol.

Also for anyone with similar symptoms and are going to change the VR on their car. For X5's with the auxiliary fan behind the radiator, be careful when removing the fan and avoid hitting the little hose/nipple on the upper radiator hose. Unfortunately for me when I was lifting the aux fan from the car, I also hit the hose and the whole nipple broke off of the upper radiator hose, so now I'm going to have to shell out around $90 just for one damn hose. :mad:

BMW's quick connect hoses are absolutely garbage as they get older so just be careful about that.

But overall it was an easy job. Thanks for all your guys' replies and help!

You can use a bit of silicone to hold the cap back on if you break the retaining tab to do a retrofit.

I noticed that only one slip ring gets significant wear so I'm thinking of pulling wife's alternator and reworking the copper bus bars to reverse the armature polarity. Swap the brushes for like $6 and double the lifespan.