CA 6v charging system prob

Just be for calling it a night yesterday taking care of this project


I was going to take one more load out to add to the burn pile. " Mr Tractor" was idling and just shut off. Done. No weird noises or anything. He does this when he runs out of gas (doesn't spit and sputter...just quits). Didn't think too much of it and checked the gas. Plenty in there.

So I go to restart...nothing. Not a partial turn over, no gas rushing out of carb (does this if the battery is real low but not enough to do much else), not a click or a tick, nothing.

Have suspected over the last year the charging system only works partially. Often have to put battery on charger (though didn't have to all winter...go figure!).

So pulled battery and put on charger for the night and went to bed. Also ordered new wiring and tune up stuff from Steve in NJ which I've wanted to do since I got the tractor before brushing my teeth.

This morning put battery back in. Tried to start...still nothing except the sound of me pushing the starter rod.

Went through the wiring system. Found no bare wires but the regular few that I had wrapped with electrical tape and some tape had slipped off-reinsulated .Cleaned battery connections, found a loose nut on the generator field wire terminal- tightened it, found a loose wire on starter switch- tightened it, and then tried to start up.

Fired right off.

Here's what was different though: my instrument panel ammeter was showing no charge. Just sat at zero. It always did show a charge at low, middle, and high be for the issue yesterday. Now at middle light setting and high charge setting it is showing a discharge of around 10.

Did some more work on the dead/dying wind break today with Mr Tractor and took the battery out be for calling it a day.

Need to call Steve in NJ about my order and may pick his brain some when I do.

Thoughts on what's going on with the discharge and not showing a charge anymore?

Thanks much.
Jared

if it use to show +10 amps and now it shows -10 amps and all you did was charge the battery... see if you charged it BACKWARDS, or have the two cables switched.. You can connect the + and - terminals backward on a charger and reverse charge a dead battery.... or maybe the cables on the wrong terminals ?

I'll check these things out when I get outside later.

Another thing I forgot to mention in my original post: the field terminal was loose going down into the generator. It didn't want to tighten deep down in there but I was able to pull it way up to where it was real solid/felt seated. Then tightened the nuts up.

So, what is normal for the generator field post: tight deep in or tight as far out as it will pull? Or should that post not have any play at all before having a wire hooked up?

To make sure I understand things from reading other posts: put a wire on positive battery terminal (ground), touch it momentarily (flash) to the field post. Does the engine need to be running to do this?

Thanks all!

Jared

You want to flash with the ungrounded battery post, not the grounded post.

Gerald J.

Haven't had a chance to look at anything except to make sure the battery was hooked up correctly.....it was. So no brain fart there. Will let you all know when I get to try some things out.

Jared

UH, one thing that no one caught.....you said after first incident you charged battery over night, and next day you put battery back on and nothing. then you fiddled with wiring, tightened nut etc. Well, none of that has anything to do with the started running when you pull the rod. I smell bad grounding

Without the field wire connected the generator won't generate enough to charge the battery.

Gerald J.

Sounds like a starter problem.  COULD be the ground like Lou says.....
With a fully charged battery it wouldn't start?  That is NOT a genny problem, hooked right or wrong.
Either starter or ground.  The system is simple!  You can take the genny out, or the battery out and it will still run.
1st - check for a good ground to starter
2nd - check for a bad/stuck starter.

Could have just died when idling for any reason,  probably gas.
NOT STARTING,,,,,,check 1 or 2 above.

JaredC(WI) wrote: Here's what was different though: my instrument panel ammeter was showing no charge. Just sat at zero. It always did show a charge at low, middle, and high be for the issue yesterday. Now at middle light setting and high charge setting it is showing a discharge of around 10. Did some more work on the dead/dying wind break today with Mr Tractor and took the battery out be for calling it a day. Need to call Steve in NJ about my order and may pick his brain some when I do. Thoughts on what's going on with the discharge and not showing a charge anymore? Thanks much. Jared

First of all, are you sure the battery is connected correctly? This smells something like having the battery hooked up with the negative terminal connected to ground. The generator could have repolarized and is charging correctly, but the ammeter is now reading backwards. What is the voltage reading on the battery when the ammeter is showing -10? If it is above 7 volts, this is exactly the issue. This doesn't hurt anything and you could remedy the ammeter issue by reversing the connections at the ammeter. If the battery is connected backwards, you can also change it back and repolarize the generator and everything should look normal. Of course if the battery voltage is below 7 volts while the engine is running, the battery is in fact discharging. You'll need to look deeper into that.

Edit: My mind was think 12 when it should have been thinking 6.




Edited by DougS - 12 May 2019 at 9:48am