Ford 4610 Charging System Saga Ends

Jerry/MT

Well-known Member
After putting up with a non-functional charging system on our 4610 since 1999, I was bound and determined to fix it this Spring. Since the wiring harness was damaged and jerry rigged by the PO, I decide to create a new alternator wiring system if I could find the key switch in the harness and the wire that went between the alternator lamp and alternator regulator terminal. I thought I found them and low and behold I got the alternator lamp to turn on with the key switch, the alternator started charging but at 18.4V and the lamp would not go out. Foiled again!
Frustrated, I took it to a local tractor repair shop where they spent 4.5 shop hours and got it fixed. They went back to the original wiring and found the bad connections and fixed that and now the system is working as is.

Pride be dammed it"s working and I"m a happy camper! It"s great to just jump on the tractor, turn the key and have it start like the rest of our machines.
 
Well,
It's always satisfying to have something working right.
Had it been me though I would have just converted it to a 10-SI and been done with it. I am less familiar with the 10 Series but am working on a Thousand series tractor here that has no electrics at all.
So I bought a 3000 wiring harness from YT for $50 and will buy a new alternator at Napa for about the same price.
Yesterday I opened the front half of the harness, cut out the connections for the Vreg, made two solder joints, put shrink tubing on them them, then rewrapped that area with old fashioned friction tape. Took me maybe a half hour.
I think this setup would work on a 10 Series too.
It's not original of course but will work for a loooong time.
 
The problem with the 10 SI or the Lucas style internal regulator version was the bracketry to mount alternator. I didn"t want to get into a redesign of the mounting bracketry as it"s a tight fit as is and the OEM Motorola alternator has a different mount set up than I have ever seen on any alternator. Not impossible but very time consuming and this is a working tractor not a parade machine.In the case of the Lucas type, it required some sort of special plug for the wires also.I just wanted to get the alternator to charge the battery correctly.

Given all these constraints, I figured using just the basic alternator circuit and rewiring that would get me there. I got close, but no cigar! While the tractor was manufactured here, I believe the wiring was designed in the UK and was not very straight forward. The basic alternator circuit was pretty straight forward IF I could find the wiring from the key switch through the alternator lamp. I got close but the output voltage was way too high.(18.4 V vs. spec of 14.1V maybe due to the old battery) and the alternator lamp would not go out with the unit obviously charging.

I"m obviously not an auto electric specialist but this wiring set up seems to me to be more complicated than need be. My goodness it"s a diesel powered tractor and only needs a starting system, a charging system, lights, and engine sensors. None of these are very electrically complicated individually. I"ll bet they designed this system the way they did because they could save 2 feet of 16 guage wire! And it didn"t help that the PO destroyed the front and rear harness main connectors rendering the circuit diagrams somewhat useless.

None the less it"s working now.


 

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