Helping a neighbor

jacksun65

Well-known Member
Neighbor came over the other day to bale my hay. He has a massey ferguson 390 cab tractor. They got 12 bales and the battery melted, got a new one. They put it in and started the tractor and the starter wouldn't stop. I unhooked the battery and it stopped. They finished baling and asked what i thought. I said if that starter had been running all that time it was shot and maybe that was what melted the battery. they had shut the tractor off so hooked the battery back up and it wouldn't start, jumped the solenoid and it started.
Question is this tractor has a neutral safety when this first happend shouldn't it have prevented the starter from running when they were driving it. and could it have caused the problem. going to go look at it today to see if I can figure it out thanks.
 

Once tractor was put in gear neutral start switch was eliminated from starter engagement. My guess is washer inside solenoid stuck to lugs inside solenoid due to pitting or low battery voltage.
 
Jacksun,

About two weeks ago I had to replace the relay (solenoid), starter, and battery on my Ford 2000, 3 cylinder gas. It sounds like I had the same problem that you described. The battery was melted, the starter growled even with the key turned off. By the time I realized what was happening, the starter had gone bad.

My local New Holland dealer's parts department is a joke. They couldn't figure out the proper part number for the relay, so they tried to sell me one for an 8N and said, "Here, try this one. It might work." It was completely different, so I thanked them for their efforts and went to a local auto parts store (that also has a lot of tractor parts) and got the right one. Now back in business.

Tom in TN
 

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