Finally converted to 12 volt

Got the 4020 switched over to 12 volts no more dead batteries

Did you put a solenoid inline to pull in the starter solenoid?

No my 3020 has one but this one never has should I put one in

(quoted from post at 22:03:33 01/07/18) No my 3020 has one but this one never has should I put one in

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good evening sv. looking at your pics one thing I noticed was the size of cables, the positive going from battery to battery looks good, the positive going to the starter looks smaller? it should be as big or bigger than the one between the batterys, if you have or can get some 1/0 welding cable it works far better than battery cable, welding cable has many more strands of finer wire and will transfer current to your starter a lot better. the solenoid idea came about so equipment manufacturors could save money on cable, they would use smaller cable coming up to the solenoid and then use a short piece of bigger cable from the solenoid to the starter. if you go with 1/0 from battery to battery and then 2/0 from the last battery to the starter you won't need to worry about a solenoid. the other trick I use up here in cold weather is to wrap each battery with a 100 watt battery blanket, keeps the batterys toasty warm. a battery at -20 has only 50% or less of it's rated capacity. the other trick I use is in the new battery boxes you built put 1/2" rubber on the floor of your battery box, keeping your batterys off that cold steel makes a big difference as well. hope this helps sv. it works well for me up here.

Yes these were just the cables that were already on
the tractor I need to upgrade them as these are
about 15 years old and they were on the tractor
from when it was 24 volt . I need to get the cable
that has both hookups for the batteries and then
then the 3rd leg coming off to go to the starter

If it was my tractor & I was getting new battery cables i'd get 2 positive cables that went from + post on each battery to top post on starter solenoid & get 2 - battery cables from each battery to starter mounting bolt.

Installing another solenoid(relay) such as David referred to is an excellent idea.

you should never run the cables over hyd. lines they will chafe over time and burn a hole in line instant fire

At DC or low frequency AC, current flows throughout the conductor, so actually you have more surface area (for a given cable diameter) with solid wire than stranded wire for a conduction path. As frequency increases, and we are talking about up in the HF, VHF, UHF, and beyond, current flows on the surface...path of least of resistance. That's why "Waveguides" are effective for microwave frequencies; very low loss, high surface area, signal totally encapsulated.

I had a 4230 with batteries on either side and daisy chained together for 24V, mother deere OEM. Slow starter in the winter. Got tired of that so I made some changes.

I mounted new 12v, size 31 (⅜" studded size 27s) OTR truck batteries, very reasonably priced as the OTR dealer bought batteries by the pallet, 960 CCA each on either side as was the OEM positioning and ran parallel 2/0 stranded wire across connecting the batteries in parallel.....which the OEM truck dealer made up for me at a reasonable price; same wire used on OTR trucks.

From the battery adjacent to the starter, I ran (as short as possible) the + 2/0 to the solenoid input and the - 2/0 mounted under a starter bolt, with the connection nice and shiny and tight such that the lead was in contact with the mounting flange of the starter. This made the lowest conduction path for the least starting current resistance.

I don't need to tell you what a difference it made. All I had to do was be near the tractor and just "think" about starting it and she lit right off on her own......well not exactly, but you get the idea. Grin!

Yes, the 12V starter solenoid will draw a lot through the neutral safety switch.

You must have got a lifetime warranty on those batteries.

The 4230 was never 24 volts from the factory.

You done good! [b:9ac2155519]Texasmark1[/b:9ac2155519] said it all and I agree with him.

Thanks that?s how the cables on the 3020 are set
up one from each battery to the starter . The local
cnh dealer use to make battery cables with the
hydraulic hose press but they quit making them