Butch(OH)
Well-known Member
A curiosity/fun question for those who have been around Kohlers for a while. My little operation sees 15-20 tractors a year for various repairs and I just had a Kolher command twin powered tractor in the shop for a no charge condition. Ended up it had the same problem as several others. The first one several years ago drove me crazy. A sears Craftsman had the correct A/C voltage coming from the stator, rectifier tested good, wiring tested good. Took a regulator off a known charging tractor and still no charge. Ran a wire directly from the DC terminal to the battery and still no charge. For reasons I cannot remember I used a test wire to ground the regulator to the battery and it started charging. The tractor showed no evidence of it ever being grounded previously and owner claimed to have bought the tractor new, had never messed with it and it charged OK for two years. I passed it off as a quirk and went on with life. Since then I have had three more tractors of various makes in the shop with same engines and same issue, they used to charge, were not messed with and suddenly quit. Grounding the rectifier fixed all pf them You guys who know these engines well know that it is, or was standard practice to mount the regulators to the plastic shroud, none of the tractors had a broken wire or any evidence being grounded previously. I checked Kohlers wiring diagrams and it does not show the regulator housing being grounded. What is going on that requires the rectifiers to suddenly require grounding to charge??? Have any others run into this?