I learned today about clutches on reefers. Learned when ours was replaced.
Diane and I woke up this morning in a retail area in Sacramento near the reefer (refrigerating unit) dealer we called on today. It turned out that the diagnosis of a bad alternator was incorrect. After they put a new one on, the same “ALT AUX” code was received in the truck cab.
This code was first received when we ran the reefer while we were at our Florida house in January and February. As with the truck, we ran the reefer every now and then to keep it fresh and limber while it sat for two months. Our intention was to get the reefer fixed once we got back on the road in early March. But we were running strong out of the gate and no good opportunity developed to get the reefer fixed.
When we were in Reno last week, I had time to look at the reefer. All the connections were good but I cleaned them anyway. The alternator belt was in place and in good shape. Calls to two reefer dealers confirmed what I then thought. Alternator failures on older reefers are common. The alternator has probably failed.
After a bit of online research and calling around, we found an alternator shop in Reno that had the replacement part but they were charging a much higher price than a Carrier dealer would. I decided to not do the job myself since the cost would be about the same to buy the part from Carrier and pay the labor rate to have it installed. If it turned out not to be a bad alternator, the bad diagnosis would be on them, not me.
That turned out to be good thinking because when the new alternator was put on by this shop, the same fault code was received. A more senior person was called in to look at our reefer.
While he had earlier agreed with the failed alternator theory, he next did something neither I nor the younger mechanic had done. He watched the reefer run while the fault code was being generated. All three of us saw the same thing at the same time. While the reefer ran, the belts stopped moving, then started, then stopped and started again. The clutch was not properly engaging. This created an intermittent condition where the reefer was able to maintain temp but the ALT AUX code would be received. The culprit was the clutch, not the alternator.
