mb58

Member
I have a 2020 utility tractor with a gas engine. I use it maybe once a week around the farm. It consistently refuses to crank. Why? because the battery is always dead. Put in a hot battery and it will crank instantly. Let it run 10 minutes or 5 hours and turn off the key. Turn it back on and it will drag as if the battery is dead. Maybe turn over once or twice real slow and then start clicking. Jumper cables or battery booster changes nothing. You can recharge the battery but after a few more times of draining, it won't hold a charge any longer. I had the starter checked and the guy said it was ok. I put a negative ground disconnect on it because I thought while it was sitting idle that it had a short draining the battery. Didn't help or change anything. Alternator is working fine also. So what is killing the battery? This has been going on for about a year now. Very frustrating and getting expensive. Opinions wanted please.
 
(quoted from post at 10:15:29 01/15/14) ... It consistently refuses to crank ... because the battery is always dead. Put in a hot battery and it will crank instantly. Let it run 10 minutes or 5 hours and turn off the key. Turn it back on and it will drag as if the battery is dead. ... Jumper cables or battery booster changes nothing ... I had the starter checked and the guy said it was ok. I put a negative ground disconnect on it because I thought while it was sitting idle that it had a short draining the battery. Didn't help or change anything.

If the battery is, in fact, disconnected from the tractor, I believe that you can safely assume that the tractor is not discharging it.
What is the actual voltage of the battery measured at the starter under various conditions.

I'd go back to basics here... follow the entire electrical path between the battery and the starter. Remove, clean-till-bright, and reassemble each and every connection both positive and negative.

That jumper cables don't change anything would lead one to suspect that the problem has nothing to do with the battery but rather the starter, solenoid or electrical path between them and the battery.
 
Is this only happening when the engine is warm then? If so,could be so much carbon in the engine that it's causing too much compression.
What would happen if you took,say,two spark plugs out when this happens to reduce the compression. Will it roll then?

Timing too maybe? Trying to fire too soon. Mechanical advance on those wasn't there?
 
Look at where the ground cable attaches to chassis. If connected to battery box, replace ground cable with heiver and longer cable that will ground off starter mounting bolt. This was/is a known problem area. DW
 
One of my 3020's had a problem of a dragging starter similar to that but it was not happening every time.Went through and checked and/or changed everything I could think of.I took the starter to my rebuilder and he said it looked like new inside. I finally took the starter back to him a couple of months ago and told him if he couldnt figure it out I needed to order a new one. He played with it a couple of days and discovered the new looking bendix wasnt working correctly. He said it appeared to be made in China. The old girl has started great since then.
 
Sometimes cable will have bad contact inside end clamp on battery. Will work fine sometimes and act goofy others. Load test at battery and again at starter and ground.
 

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