Helpful Motorola “Triple Nickle” Teardown Tips BY NATHAN UNGER ften, the bearings and stators on the 555 Motorola alternators, (also branded as Leece Neville or Prestolite) hold too tightly to easily separate the housings. I needed a way to support the alternator by the SRE housing in my arbor press, in order to push the SRE bearing out of the housing. Figure 1 shows what I came up with. I will describe the various pieces in more detail. Figure 1—A Motorola 555 alternator ready for SRE bearing removal Notice that I first removed all of the nuts from the SRE housing. That way, the stator connections will not tear if the stator does not release from the DE housing first. Figure 2—A piece of 4″ channel iron modified to create a support Now the supports: I got some 4” tall channel iron and cut a 2” wide piece. Then, I cut away part of the upper area to create a tang. (This tang is sized to fit other jobs as well). I cut the tang back 4” so that the support will not tip over easily. (see Figure 2) Two of these are enough for this job, but other styles of alternators may require three or four. Many years ago, I made a support base (7.5” x 10”x 3/8” thick) into which I created an elongated hole, which gives me some latitude to receive a rotor shaft. (see Figure 3). For the “pusher”, I used a small 3/16” Allen key on a 3/8” socket base. (see Figure 1). The Allen-key part fits nicely into the hole in the back of the slip ring and pushes directly on the shaft itself. My arbor press has a small hole and set screw in the ram, which I use to mount a small cut-off-end of a 3/8 inch socket extension. I made the piece short enough so that the socket holds snugly against the bottom of the ram without Figure 3—The support base with elon- gated hole wobbling. (see Figure 4) This can hold any number of different sockets for other uses too. By the way, here is yet another way to remove a stubborn key. (see Figure 5). Grab it tightly with the side cutters, and pry up. LET RIA Figure 4—Arbor press with 3/8 socket extension mounted in the ram Figure 5—Using side cutters to remove key