I bought this tractor a years or so ago and the only electrical thing on it that worked was that it cranked. I changed the oil and used it through the work season last year. During my time off for this Christmas i had a goal to fix all the electrical issues on it and made a bit of progress. The dash was new from the guy i bought it from since he tried to fix these problems too but wasn't successful. Other than that, i have replaced the wiring harness, tach cable, the water temp sender, oil pressure sender, dash voltage stabilizer (one of the terminals was broke off), head lights, and now the control box/regulator. One of my remaining issues is the warning light is on (the other issue is the gas gauge only works half the time). From suggestions I've seen on this site (and others from Google), I've done this testing:
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to field terminal directly on generator and i get < 1 volt.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to D terminal directly on generator and i get < 3 volts. (What does the D stand for?)
From this behavior, i found an internet discussion that said i needed to polarize the generator so i unplugged the field terminal from the regulator and tapped it a few time to the battery positive terminal to get sparks. Plugged everything back in and did the same tests again and got the same results.
Next i found a discussion, that said to prove generator is good and regulator is bad, i needed to jumper from the positive battery terminal to the field terminal on generator. So, i unplugged the field line from the control box and jumper from positive battery terminal to the field line to the generator. After that i did the same test and got these results.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to field terminal directly on generator and it was bouncing from 9 to 12 volts.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to D terminal directly on generator and it was ranging from 11 to 13 volts.
At this point, the warning light was off and I figured that i needed to replace the control box. Ordered one that came in today but after replacing it, the warning light was still on. I did the same tests as above and got the same results (barely any voltage, then bypass field line and get correct voltage). Next I left the tractor running and hooked the field line back up to the regulator. I was about to cut the tractor off and noticed the warning light was off. The weird thing is it ran like this for a few minutes and by the time i was excited that it resolved itself and was going to button everything back up, the warning light came back on and the tests results were back to the original behavior.
Does anyone have any ideas what I'm missing?
This post was edited by OvrDEdge on 01/10/2023 at 04:40 pm.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to field terminal directly on generator and i get < 1 volt.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to D terminal directly on generator and i get < 3 volts. (What does the D stand for?)
From this behavior, i found an internet discussion that said i needed to polarize the generator so i unplugged the field terminal from the regulator and tapped it a few time to the battery positive terminal to get sparks. Plugged everything back in and did the same tests again and got the same results.
Next i found a discussion, that said to prove generator is good and regulator is bad, i needed to jumper from the positive battery terminal to the field terminal on generator. So, i unplugged the field line from the control box and jumper from positive battery terminal to the field line to the generator. After that i did the same test and got these results.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to field terminal directly on generator and it was bouncing from 9 to 12 volts.
- Engine running, voltmeter black cable to negative battery and red cable to D terminal directly on generator and it was ranging from 11 to 13 volts.
At this point, the warning light was off and I figured that i needed to replace the control box. Ordered one that came in today but after replacing it, the warning light was still on. I did the same tests as above and got the same results (barely any voltage, then bypass field line and get correct voltage). Next I left the tractor running and hooked the field line back up to the regulator. I was about to cut the tractor off and noticed the warning light was off. The weird thing is it ran like this for a few minutes and by the time i was excited that it resolved itself and was going to button everything back up, the warning light came back on and the tests results were back to the original behavior.
Does anyone have any ideas what I'm missing?
This post was edited by OvrDEdge on 01/10/2023 at 04:40 pm.