alternator issues

last year has terrible luck with alternators on my white 2-135. they would not last but maybe a month. finally found a bad connection in the lighting circuit and that seemed to help. I was wrong. went out again yesterday. overheated and quit. the first ones I put on were 10si's of around 35 amp. the last one I put on was a 12si of 65 amp. book shows 100 amp. I've never had trouble with the 10 or 12si's on my 4020 diesel or 2510 gas but this white just eats em up.
I can't find any other issue with the tractor electrical. is 65 amp just not enough?
thanks
Gary
 
With airconditioning at night with a few extra lights running it could need 65 amps, but that would be all. Three things take out alternators. A radical short circuit to ground. Severe vibration, and cooling issues where they are located. Lesser issues can be failed diode systems, bearing failure, and brushes worn out.
Is the alt in a location that could get manifold heat, or restricted air flow?
Is the fan turbine on the pulley?
Is it on a mount that vibrates radically?
Jim
 
i would pick up an ammeter and wire it in right at the alternator and see how many amps its pulling when running. with fully charged batteries it shouldnt pull many amps at all. if it pegs the needle you got a problem somewhere.
 
You have the cooling listed but they can also have the wrong puley/fan on them. Air flow is the wrong way around. Rebuilders put a car pulley on as where some tractors are opposite. IMHO. I remember my dad saying how people would take the side covers off of their cub cadets to "improve the air flow to cool the engine" Wrong. They over heated and guess who just voided the warranty. Hope his story was correct. He used to work at a dealership.
 
I will try the amp meter. alt is mounted in factory spot. has fan on alt close to manifold but not any different then any other tractor. I was running during the day. when I started yesterday afternoon putting on fertilizer the gauge was showing a little over 14v. all of a sudden it went to 16 then back down. just continued this until I could smell the alternator was hot, but that was 3 hours into fertilizing. Unplugged it and kept going. plugged it back in about 2 hrs later and you could hear it pull a little load on the tractor but would not charge. I would think if I had such a bad short someplace it would have burned itself apart by now or showed up somehow.
Gary
 
I was wrong. factory alternator is a Motorola 55 amp. Even so I can't see that would make any difference. the Motorola has one wire that attaches to it with a plug and one that goes to the "bat" terminal.
 
Automotive alternators are inherently self-current limiting and should be able to charge at max Amps all day long if there's adequate cooling air flow, so they shouldn't be dying from being loaded.

Run a new 8 or 10 GA wire from the output stud to to main starter solenoid stud where the (+) battery cable connects to eliminate the possibility there's a high resistance connection or an occasional "open" in the factory wiring. Alternators do not like those sorts of things.

You can leave the factory wiring in place, in parallel, so accessories are supplied with power as they were before.

While you're at it, run a "voltage sense" wire from the #2 alternator's terminal to the same stud at the starter solenoid.

Be SURE there's a resistor, an "idiot light" or a diode in the wiring from the ignition switch to the alternator's #1 "excite" terminal.

If wired WITHOUT any of those, the alternator will try to charge through that path, loading the diode trio and internal wiring in the voltage regulator.

That being said, a customer's GREEN 4430 has gone through two replacement 12SI alternators, we just installed the third, in less than 50 hours.

They have been lifetime warranty units from an autoparts chain who shall remain nameless (but was suggested by another poster to this thread).

The first two had stators that looked like they'd been just pulled out of a core and re-used without oven a good cleaning and a new coat of insulating varnish.

The last one we just installed appears to be all new except for the bead-blasted reused case, reman in china. We'll see how long this one lasts!
 
I would guess you have a wiring issue(s) in the tractor that are goofing up the alternator (bad wire(s) bad ground ect). OR you could be getting bad alternators. I've read on some auto forums where people can hardly get a couple months out of cheap rebuilds.
 
I thought that also after the 4th one but I can't find anything. unhooked different "sections" of the tractor, like the cab, lights, whatever was fed by a main wire that I could eliminate and see if it made any difference. that is how we found the bad fuse holder for the lights. but could be as some suggested a bad sense wire or main wire. I did run new wires from the starter to the batteries last year. even put in new batteries thinking an issue in one of them. Only thing we have added is a couple extra LED lights to the cab but these alternators are failing without the lights being on.
would a higher amp alternator help maybe?
Gary
 
(quoted from post at 19:33:27 04/19/17) last year has terrible luck with alternators on my white 2-135. they would not last but maybe a month. finally found a bad connection in the lighting circuit and that seemed to help. I was wrong. went out again yesterday. overheated and quit. the first ones I put on were 10si's of around 35 amp. the last one I put on was a 12si of 65 amp. book shows 100 amp. I've never had trouble with the 10 or 12si's on my 4020 diesel or 2510 gas but this white just eats em up.
I can't find any other issue with the tractor electrical. is 65 amp just not enough?
thanks
Gary

I would also add a dedicated ground alt case to engine block...
 
There was a rash of alternator problems from a supplier a few years ago. Would over charge like to 19 volts. Supplier would not believe the local mechanic until he put one on a tractor with salesman standing there, then switched to a known good one. I had a bunch of bad voltage regulators myself. Also, when at the dealer we had a bunch of bad stator windings. I would put in new stators and alternator would pull very hard, get hot, no charge. Put in good stators, worked fine. Don't believe it myself, but bad stator back in, same problem. Gave stators back to parts department and next time I needed a stator, here it was the rejected one back on the shelf, same problem. Trying to get warranty on defective parts was tough. GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

If I was putting it on , I would use my carbon pile to load batteries, have volt meter hooked on along with my good clamp over wire ammeter. Then would use temperature gun to see how hot that made alternator run.

Another thing that really messes up those three wire delco alternaters is the sense lead to number two terminal. A loose or corroded connection will kill an alternator right soon with up and down voltages. I have hooked a variable rheostat to number two terminal when I had the alternator on a test bench. Playing with that rheostat I could make a good alternator charge over 20 volts. That was to prove bad connections can make a good alternator and voltage regulator go nuts and they will drive you there sometimes.
 
(quoted from post at 08:08:58 04/19/17) You have the cooling listed but they can also have the wrong puley/fan on them. Air flow is the wrong way around. Rebuilders put a car pulley on as where some tractors are opposite. IMHO. I remember my dad saying how people would take the side covers off of their cub cadets to "improve the air flow to cool the engine" Wrong. They over heated and guess who just voided the warranty. Hope his story was correct. He used to work at a dealership.

The same thing happened to Lincoln SA200 portable welders that happened to the Cub Cadets, a lot of guys removed the side covers when the manual specifically warned against the practice as the machine would overheat! SLOW learners! :roll:
 
try hooking the #2 terminal on the alternator directly to the battery terminal of the alternator and make sure the connections between the battery positive terminal and alternator are good, also as mentioned check for grounding issues between the alternator and battery.This may have nothing to do with your problem,but I wired up an old 53 ford with a high performance 351 Cleveland engine for a friend and it would not charge under 10 amps which I knew wouldn't work long ,after several attemps to to fix it with no success I stopped by the local rebuilder and he told me I had it wired right the battery was the problem, of coarse I wasn't convinced that was the problem because it was winter time and the battery never failed to spin the engine like a top, so I hooked a set of jumper cables to another truck started up the 53 ford and lifted the negative cable from the battery in the 53 ford while the jumper cables remained hooked to the other battery and it cut back to almost 0,i told the man who owned it I need a battery and he didn't believe it was bad either until we repeated the test. The rebuilder said some bad batteries will not except a full charge but will be strong enough to start and engine, he was right best I can recall it would not accept a charge much over 12 volts even though the alternator was producing 14.7
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top