Shucks! I hope I didn't damaged anything. It wasn't may fault; I was just doing my regular monthly/bi-monthly car fluid level inspections. I couldn't see the break fluid level so I decided to take off its tank cover. To my horror, some break fluid spilt out when the cover was removed. It spilt again, because of that piece of plastic float in the tank, when I screwed the cap back on. Non got onto the paint work luckily, since I've read that break fluid is an excellent paint stripper. But I have some break fluid spilt onto the exposed wires of the alternator coil and the belt that drives the alternator.
I found out much later that the standard thing to do is to flush the spill off with some water. Too late as I have already mopped it up the best I could with a piece of rag immediately after the spill. There are some hard to reach places, like on the alternator coil, where I could not do anything. I didn't flush any water onto the alternator coil as I was not sure what the outcome would be. I just didn't want to make matters worse. I just didn't want to risk it.
I tried starting the car about an hour later after the incident: no problems there, everything looks normal - no dashboard warning lights indicating anything out of the ordinary. The alternator is still good I presume.
The alternator belt was emitting some squeaky noises, but it went away after awhile. I took the car out for a spin: the breaks work, but it feels a little soft. Pumping on the breaks pedal a couple of times seems to fixed that, luckily.
One Week After
The car still seems to be alright after a week. The alternator still seems okay. Again, no warning lights on the dashboard concerning the alternator.
There seems to be some white spots on the alternator casing that wasn't there last week. I just take a damp cloth and wipe those spots away.
I still have this uneasy feeling: will the remnants of the spill work its way through the insulation on the alternator coil wires eventually?
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