Battery Problem

bowhunternw · May 14, 2019

So I converted my 300 u to 12 volt this winter. I have not given it a long test run until today. Put a cheap auto battery in and everything works fine except I noticed the batter was leaking acid out of the top caps. Do I need to get a sealed battery or one that can get bounced around. Or am I somehow throwing to much charge to it and is boiling over?

504 · May 14, 2019

Over charging,or a short, if the battery is dead tomorrow you will know if it is a short

pinball · May 14, 2019

could be it was to full. check to make sure the level is down 1/4 inch. leave caps off start your tractor and watch the levels. if they come up quickly you probably are over charging it for some reason.

old · May 14, 2019

Fill in the blanks. How did you convert it. Alternator but which one Delco 1 wire or 3 wire or some other one. If a 3 wire do you have the #2 wire hooked up so he V turns off when it should

rustred · May 14, 2019

check the charging volts. and was the battery low? and how is the acid level? if too full and fast charging it will come out the caps. need more info . also is this an alternator or generator? lots of times those old regulators are responsible for over charging.

thastinger · May 15, 2019

(quoted from post at 18:40:46 05/14/19) So I converted my 300 u to 12 volt this winter. I have not given it a long test run until today. Put a cheap auto battery in and everything works fine except I noticed the batter was leaking acid out of the top caps. Do I need to get a sealed battery or one that can get bounced around. Or am I somehow throwing to much charge to it and is boiling over?

What is the battery voltage when you shut off the tractor? Battery hydrometers aren't expensive and you can test the specific gravity of each cell, anything over 1.265 is overcharged.
I assume you used a single wire alt?
Car battery should last a long time but I used an interstate marine battery in mine, been in there 8 years so far.

BarnyardEngineering · May 15, 2019

If you are bouncing around enough to throw battery acid up out of the caps, you are driving WAY TOO FAST. Those caps are pretty well sealed and will keep the acid in under normal conditions.

What does the ammeter say? If the needle is pegged, you are overcharging the battery and boiling the acid.

Check your wiring. Have someone else who knows what they're doing check your wiring. Sometimes we get the mentality, "I checked that already and it's fine," when re-checking our own work, and miss obvious problems, so a fresh set of eyes can be useful.

That said, cheap alternators have a high rate of failure. If you bought the cheapest $30 Delco 10SI from AutoZone/Oreilly's/Advance, there's a good chance it has already failed.

bowhunternw · May 15, 2019

This was a kit that I bought. It is the small hitachi altenator, I believe that is the brand. Also came with the 12 volt coil. It used the inplace wiring, basically take the old wire feeding from the altenator and connecting it to the 2 wires from the voltage regulator. Then switching the posts on the ammeter. Then hooking up the new battery to be negative ground. It said that to check to see if charging, it should read between 13 and 14 volts when running. Which it did. Maybe I should recheck it to make sure that it is still in that range. The battery was brand new and did not check the acid level.

bowhunternw · May 15, 2019

I wont get back to tractor till tomorrow to check voltage. what would cause overcharging, internal voltage regulator? When I initially test ran it, the ammeter read slighlty above neutral. last night I did notice it was stuck way to right. I just figured it wasn't working.

Ken Hansen · May 16, 2019

Would agree on the over charging idea.

I converted mine something like 30 years ago with a 3 wire Delco and never checked the battery until it failed to crank over a couple years ago.

Do most of my mowing in third gear on a not so smooth lawn and never had a problem with acid coming out of the battery. And it was I believe the cheapest 12 volt battery I could find that fit the battery box.

Ken Hansen · Jul 3, 2019

A little up date on my Farmall BN.

Just had the battery fail this week, started fine in morning but after I shut it off to cut some branches out of the brush I was pulling out with it it was stone dead! Well actually showed 12.5 volts on tester but as soon as you put any load on it like trying to crank it over volts dropped to about 1.5!

Removed battery, who decided to install the battery in a box where you had to remove the battery box to get it out and also hold down the clutch at the same time?

Once battery was out I could see the date code the battery shop put on when I bought it, dated May of 2008! Only 11 years on a battery! :mrgreen:

Next question is which will go first, The new battery, The Farmall BN or me?

Battery Problem

bowhunternw

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504

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pinball

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old

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rustred

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thastinger

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BarnyardEngineering

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bowhunternw

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bowhunternw

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Ken Hansen

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Ken Hansen

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