Well, that didn't go as well as I had hoped.
That Tuff Stuff polished alternator I ordered from Summit Racing was drop shipped directly from Tuff Stuff and showed up today (Thursday). I didn't get a real warm and fuzzy feeling when I opened up the inside box (it was double boxed, to their credit) and saw that the alternator didn't have much to keep it from bouncing around in that box. Actually punched a hole through one side.
The next thing I noticed is that the plastic cap on the back of the alternator was loose. Well, the two threaded studs holding it in place didn't have the nuts installed that would have done that.
Or maybe they it was held tight in place by crimping on the studs and rolling around in the box during shipment just loosened them up. Regardless, not a real good impression.
Well, the icing to this cake was when I started looking at the actual polishing job itself. Well, NOT impressed!
I also noticed that polishing compound appeared to still be in small nooks and crannies in the alternator housing, which meant that it was not cleaned off properly to remove the compound. If that wasn't quite enough, I also noticed what appeared to be polishing compound on the windings INSIDE of the alternator.
Which to me indicated that this thing was NOT taken apart to be polished, and was polished as is as a completed unit. Well, heck, I could have done that myself if I wanted to ruin a perfectly good alternator by getting polishing compound all inside of it. Thanks, but NO thanks.
So I contacted Summit Racing, sent the above pics to them, and told them what I thought about this junk I was sent by Tuff Stuff. They immediately sent me a UPS return tag, and I have that alternator all boxed up to take to a drop off site tomorrow.
Heck, I didn't even try to see if it would fit on the engine. I just did not want to waste my time mounting it just to take if off again to pack up to ship out of here. Maybe I should have done that, but honestly, I was pretty pissed off by then.
So I just ordered a plain jane "limited lifetime" warranty alternator from Advance Auto. Maybe one of these days I'll try my hand at taking apart one of the old alternators I believe I have laying around here, and see about rebuilding it. While it is apart, I can do my own polishing if I feel real ambitious. I certainly couldn't do an worse than what I am seeing from Tuff Stuff.