Ford 4000 starting issue

Tractor is a Ford 4000, 4 cylinder gasoline, with a 6 volt system. I assumed it was the solenoid at first, and it very well might be, but what it's doing makes no sense to me.

The battery is fully charged, and holds up when I put a load tester on it. When I hook it up to the tractor and try to crank it, nothing happens. Put the load tester on it with it still hooked up, and the needle drops to dead when I push the load button.

Of note, several months back I rebuilt the generator, with some tips from the people here that helped alot. Had to leave the tractor sitting longer than I wanted when I found an oil leak and needed to wait a while to get the gaskets I needed to repair it. If anyone needs to know anything else I'll be glad to help, I'm in a right state needing it running to haul some fallen branches off. Thank you for your time.

It could be the solenoid, or it could be the starter switch.

When you say that you press the button on the load tester and the needle drops to dead when the battery is connected to the tractor, is the key switch in the run position, or the off position? If the key switch is in the run position, there are things that might be providing a path to ground, like maybe the points are closed, or a warning light might be in the circuit with the key on. If the key switch is in the off position, then the key switch itself could be faulty.

To test the battery and starter while taking the solenoid out of the picture, first MAKE SURE THAT THE TRANSMISSION IS IN NEUTRAL, and then jumper across the two large posts of the solenoid and the starter should spin. Oh yeah, did I mention to first MAKE SURE THAT THE TRANSMISSION IS IN NEUTRAL.

if your load tester says the battery is dead, when it is hooked to the battery and you hit the starter.. 9 and nothing happens ont he tractor.. ie. no spinning engine ). then the battery is DEAD!

or the cable ends you have all the clamps hooekd to are very very bad

Sorry, I left some information out of my last post. I only pressed the button on the load tester -after- pressing the starter switch, with the key in the 'run' position. When I turn the key on the generator warning light comes on as it should, but once I press the starter switch the light goes off, and that is when I get the strange 'dropping to zero' reaction from the load tester. It continues to give that reaction even if I turn the key on and off, or press the starter switch several more times, until I wiggle the positive terminal battery cable connection, which is not the ground. I know the tractor was originally positive ground, but at some point someone changed that around. I'll be changing it back at a later date when I'm able, and understand things a bit better. Anyway, once I wiggle the positive terminal even a bit, the generator light comes back on, and the load test starts working again.

I tried the solenoid bypass earlier, but I may have done it wrong, I was more than a bit tired. I'll give it another try tomorrow. Does the key need to be in the 'run' position for that test? Do I need to depress the starter switch?

Soundguy, the battery goes from passing a load test just fine, to failing it miserably, depending on whether it is connected to the system or not. Voltage is up, load test works fine. It's only registering as dead when I hook it into the tractor itself and depress the starter switch with the key in the 'run' position.

Given the additional information, I would start with testing the battery directly to the starter and ground with jumper cables, without the regular battery cables even being connected.

If that tests good, then I would disconnect both ends of both battery cables and making sure the connectors on the ends are clean and bright, as well as the points that they connect to (battery posts, solenoid post and whatever ground point it's using), and do the same thing with the cable between the solenoid and the starter. And before I put the cables back on I would put an ohmmeter across them and wiggle the connectors to see if one or both might be bad internally.

Sounds complicated. From jaybeef's last info there's trouble in his positive cable or its connection to the battery!

(quoted from post at 06:27:43 08/16/14)
Sounds complicated. From jaybeef's last info there's trouble in his positive cable or it's connection to the battery!

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And that would be it. Positive battery terminal had some coorosion on it. I was so focused on that oil stuff, and getting it to run, that I forgot to give the terminals a cleaning before connecting everything back up. I tried hooking the battery to the starter before I saw this post and remembered to check the terminals, and I'm pretty sure it comes as no surprised that it wouldn't turn over then, either.

With the terminals clean it cranked up in a hurry and I gave it a good running with the bush hog. Thanks again for the help, and sorry for missing something so obvious.

Anyone mind if I ask a couple questions about some other things, or should I start a new topic about that?

(quoted from post at 11:15:49 08/16/14)
Anyone mind if I ask a couple questions about some other things, or should I start a new topic about that?

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Glad I was able to help! We often tend to want to overcomplicate test procedures while responding on this board, when the answer is so simple.

You can ask your other questions however you wish. It may be best to start them in new topics, though.