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 | TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley 
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2001-01-25 23667
After several weeks without enough snow to remove, the battery on my ford 1710 comes up completely dead. I don't think anything was left on. It worked fine after some time on a charger. I measured (Beckman digital VOM) a drain of 1.2 mill through the ground cable with everything off. Removing each fuse individually didn't change the drain. I suppose there is a potential current path through the regulator/alternator even with the fuses removed. Corrosion on the positive battery terminal would provide another current path, but the battery terminals were cleaned recently. Anyway, I'm wondering if a 1.2 mill drain should be considered normal. If so, then I can stop worrying about drain and start worrying about the battery and charging system. However, I guess it would take a long time for a properly charged battery to become completely discharged at a rate of 1.2 mill, so something else is probably going on. One of life's truths seems to be that if you don't have a heated shop, then problems only happen the middle of winter.
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| Bird Senter
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 962 
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2001-01-25 23670
TomG, I'm no electrician, but I'd say NO drain is normal if everything is off. It reminds me of a fellow I worked with that bought a new car a lot of years ago and everything was fine as long as he drove it to work everyday, but if he didn't drive it over the weekend, he had to jump start it Monday. He had it back to the dealer several times over a period of several months before they found that the cigarette lighter had just a tiny short; wouldn't blow the fuse, but would run the battery down in a couple of days. I'm guessing you need to find that tiny short somewhere. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-01-25 23673
Thanks Bird. Yes, I suspect I'm going to be in for some aggravation. Most nights here go to around 0F until late March. I suppose I'll end up keeping the battery up with a trickle charger for most of the winter. I figure it'll take most of the winter, given the few hours here and there when it's warm enough to grab a wrench without it sticking to your hand. Maybe if I get desperate, I can bring in my 5,000 btu propane burner and chain it on top of the canopy. Of course, that's not going to put much heat on the ground but at least I could de-numb my hands occasionally. ....
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| John Miller, III
Join Date: Posts: 1 
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2001-01-25 23675
Hum...Beckman meter huh? You have good taste! Now we use Fluke though... Anyhow, how old is the battery? Just maybe the life of the party oops I mean battery is going downhill. I saw Roger's post on his battery for over 10 years in one of his tractors, like my Isuzu P'up battery about 10 or 11 years. Severe drain in the cold, but could start fine on warm days. I'd just put another battery in. Yes 1.2 mil is not abnormal... Take the battery off, charge it fully, measure it, let it sit in the shed for 60 days, measure it again, Less or perhaps dead? Remember the battery has internal leakage, electrolyte weak/old, plates warped, causing those "tiny" internal shorts within, etc. etc.
Good luck with the new battery. (Take a piece of tape and write the date on the battery when installed for the future) ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-01-26 23694
Yes, the battery is my first guess--it may be as old as the tractor. Thanks for verifying that the small drain through the ground cable may be normal. I left a 2A charger on the battery for 24 hours, and then switched to a 1A charger. When a warm spell comes I'll take the charger off and monitor the battery specific gravity for a few days. I guess if the specific gravity stays up, then I have to look at the charging system. However, it might make more sense to just replace the battery on principal. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I discovered the dead battery on a warm day, otherwise it would have been frozen.
I do like the Beckman meter. I bought it when I started repairing my own PA equipment back in my sound engineering days. I got spoiled during my four years of teching in the Air Force. The military spends a lot on its test gear, if not its soldiers.
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2001-01-26 23700
Tom, my 10 year old battery is an Optima Red Top - born on date is 10-11-90. But I'm going to take the opposite tack from some of my esteemed fellow posters here. I think you are saying that the leakage is in the wiring, not internal to the battery itself. And while 1.2 ma is low, I don't think that there should be any leakage at all. The current value is consistent with a back flow through one of the diodes on the alternator's rectifier plate. Try unplugging the alternator and see if the current drain stops. If so, it would be interesting to talk about what it means.
The other way to look at it is that the battery should be capable of putting out 1.2 ma for at least a couple of weeks without running down. So either you left something else on, or the battery was so flat that all it could put out is 1.2 ma, or it is time for a new battery. I agree: charge it up properly and run the tests again.
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 | Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2001-01-26 23708
Tom, try a "master disconnect switch" similar to the ones people with RV's use to prevent the RV from draining the tow vehicles battery when parked, about $10Cdn. at Canadian Tire, etc., with the battery effectively disconnected every time you park it you can quickly determine whether the problem is in the battery or wiring harness. Best of luck. ....
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| RickB.
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2001-01-26 23715
I think Roger & Murf are on the right track here. Your battery may magnify the problem due to poor reserve capacity due to its age. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-01-27 23722
Thanks guys. I think it's going to be warm enough to do some testing today. I'll get back to the board. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-02-02 23863
An update on my problem: It did get warm (the 20'sF is warm around here), so I got some testing done. After charging at 2A for a day and 1A for several days, I tested with a hydrometer. Three cells barely lifted the gauge into the 'fair' zone. I didn't bother testing the rest. I replaced the battery with an automotive type speced at 875A cranking. Warm around here usually means snow, so the tractor has had some use. The tractor starts and the battery still is up since Monday. Curiously, my repair manual gives cranking specs for 13 & 1510's, but not for my 1710. I got the highest cranking amp speced battery in a size that would fit. I'm not sure that's all the problem, but I need more warm weather to figure it out. At one point after the charger use, I lost all electricals except pre-heat, work lights and start. I got the instrumentation back by cleaning fuse and holder contacts, but the lighting circuit is still out (gets voltage to the fuse but not to the lights). Oh well, another day. Actually the electricals have been gimpy since I got the tractor back from the dealer. The dealer had to remove the dash to tighten the steering column. I suspect that that some tired wiring connections were disturbed. If there's a lesson in all this, I guess that it's been long enough since my teching days so I've forgotten about preventative maintenance. I should have checked the battery capacity this summer with a hydrometer. I probably also should have gone through a wiring cleaning, tightening and jiggling exercise. Good idea to give the connections on a 15 year old tractor some attention. I haven't forgotten about the 1.2 ma leakage, but I need warm hands to get much enthusiasm for wrenching. ....
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 | Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-02-02 23872
Tom every now and then we find the Alternator or regulater the problem when we find a slow drain. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-02-04 23935
Thanks Art. Checking the regular and alternator would be my next step. However, I need a 30A load to do the tests. I figure I'll rig up a series/parallel network of AC light bulbs that will draw about the right current. Of course, if I had gone wild with work lights, then I could just turn everything on. However, tractor design is going to slow me down. The fuel tank has to be removed to access the regulator and some other wiring issues I have on a 1710. Think I'll wait until it gets warmer. If I have trouble keeping the new battery up, I suppose I'll have to get a battery cut-off switch or keep a 1A charger on it. ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2001-02-04 23939
AC light bulbs don't work too well as the resistance varies so much when they are drawing current versus just measureing them with a VOM. I can suggest a test that works well if the rectifier bridge is in the alternator - not in the regulator....most are in the alternator and if so, put your ammeter in line with the battery cable. Look for the 1.2 ma drain. Disconnect/unplug the wires at the alternator and see if the drain goes away. Then reconnect everything, remove the meter from the battery circuit, and use it to check the voltage across the battery terminals. Then start the tractor, go to 75% RPM, and check the voltage across the battery again. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-02-05 23953
Thanks Roger. You're right about the light bulbs. I forgot that the resistance goes up when they heat. Suppose I could use a whole flock of night-lights in series/parallel, so none of them heats up much, but I get a pretty silly image of the whole side of the tractor covered with night-lights. Think I'll do something different. I need a 30A load to do a regulator test described in the manual. However, I suppose another way of looking at it is to do an alternator output test as you describe. So, if the alternator is putting out the right voltage and the battery is neither going dead nor dry, then the regulator must be doing its job. In that case, why struggle with a test for the regulator? Anyway, I'm a sucker for reasoning that gets me out of work--and into trouble sometimes. Yes, the rectifier bridge is in the alternator, and I'm cheering on the regulator, because I really don't want to remove the fuel tank just to replace the regulator. ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-02-05 23958
Tom on my experiences it has been the regulator that has given the most trouble. Many on todays systems are built into the alternator's and even those will give up from time to time or allow a small leak as you have decribed. Don't mean to make it so you have to remove the fuel tank as that sounds like quite a job. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-02-06 23977
Art, those are kind words, I guess, but I figure I'm doomed to remove the tank anyway. The highway flasher is gimpy and a lighting circuit connection isn't made as well. Come to think about it the temperature gauge light is out as well. Nothing much under the dash can be accessed, and removing the dash is more trouble than removing the tank. For that matter, the dealer had to remove the dash to tighten a loose steering column. Said it was a bit of a job. Come to think of it, most of this electrical stuff, as well as a broken tach cable started happening after I got the tractor back from the dealer. Maybe the work required banging, pulling, bending and stretching of dash connections as well as cursing and swearing by the mechanics. Maybe I'm happier than I should be, but I do have sympathy for mechanics who often have to work around or over engineering designs. Ford engineers must have thought this stuff would work forever. ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-02-06 23991
Tom one of the problems we have in dealerships everywhere is not finding mechanics but Technician's. A technician works at flat rate or better and when finished you don't have more problems than when you started. ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2001-02-07 24006
Er...hmm....I'm afraid I come from an era when anyone who twisted wrenches for a living was referred to as a "mechanic". It was an honorable profession, and also included light welding and fabrication, some machine shop work, and basic electrical savvy. A mechanic could hold his head up in any society, they charged by the hour.... and the term "flat rate" was far away in an uncertain future.
On the other hand, a technician was someone who worked in a clean room and wore a lab coat. A technician of the time certainly did not work on tractors. I have no idea what he worked with, but it most definitely was not anything involving dirt,grease, or a combination of the two.... :-)
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-02-07 24008
Well, I know here is no real contention here, but I thought I’d comment anyway. I still think of tech as somebody who works on electronic things and mech as somebody who works on mechanical things. Other words were used to indicate the quality of work done by an individual. I still use some of those words-- mostly in relation to lawyers. Time does changes words, and I think tech became sort of a credentials thing that refers to completion of a certification program. However, there’s probably not an exact correspondence between credentials and quality of work performed. Some of my old words, both good and bad, may be more descriptive. Time also seems to change many things faster then me. I hear the term, but I have no idea what a technologist is supposed to do.
Actually, I've been both a mech and a tech, even though my lab coats actually were olive drab fatigues. Having done the work, I do have considerable tolerance toward the people doing it. I also know that all sorts of new failures can happen when anything old, electrical or mechanical, is disturbed by a repair. At any rate, I'll keep myself happy by thinking that what I got was a batch of the next year or two's problems concentrated into one month. Just wish it had been a warmer month. Having looked at my recent posts, it looks like I'd keep everybody else happier, or avoid being ignored, if I concentrated on using fewer words. Sure do like ideas like the cardboard hole though.
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-02-07 24011
I find that the difference in the two terms boils down to the amount of time and parts are required to get to the bottom of the problem. Auto's like tractors have gotten more complex. I enjoy working on some parts of them, do to my education being in the late 60's I don't know about the spagetti when you open the hood. I could experiment with it and learn more about the system as to why this does that and why but I have little need to. I have a friend that does that type of work but he doesn't enjoy getting his hands dirty so after he finishes getting that out of my way than I work on the engine. Often when you talk to the right person they will be able to tell you exactly what areas need to be looked at in order to fix the problem. That eliminates them from needing to experiment with your equipment because at the schools they were trained in ways to properly repair that piece of equipment. So many times I've heard about a mechanic who has tried to fix something several times but can't seem to put a finger on it, two three times back to the shop and the bills are still coming and with no results. That is the difference, I've been on both sides and give me the tech for those moments, otherwise a mechanic can be a great friend. ....
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