Best Tractor Battery / charging system issues ?

[CobyRupert]

Interesting thread. I'm curious as to why some connections corrode and others don't.

Is it the battery post that is corroding/pitting or the cable lug? I assume the lug?

General question: When one coats the connections, do you do this AFTER the connection is made on all exposed part right? You don't coat the battery post and cable lug parts that contact each other right? Isn't the idea to coat the parts that contact air and corrode, not the parts that contact each other right?

I periodically give the connections a flush with baking soda and water if I see them corroding.

 

[Coyote machine]

Best to clean the battery posts with a battery post cleaning tool, then coat the bright metal of the cleaned post with petroleum jelly/Vaseline or similar. Then install the cable end over the post along with an anti corrosion soaked felt washer, and tighten the lug. Then clean off any remaining grease, and spray the post and lug with a battery spray of choice. Let dry. Start your engine, use at will. Do same where negative cable meets frame of tractor. Clean to bare shiny metal, repeat above, less felt washer. Done. Periodically inspect battery/ connections, AND lift caps on battery top to check electrolyte/water level. Top off water to split ring level, wearing glasses, until all cells are even with distilled water. Replace caps.

 

[buickanddeere]

Over filled battery

 

[Coyote machine]

Over filled battery

In relation to what?:confused2:

 

[Oldpath05]

""My main reason is the corrosion issue. As noted in my original post, I've had the "cottage cheese" of corrosion build up on my positive battery terminal almost since it was new, and had to replace the lug on the end at least twice."""

I don't get it Big Dan, never touch my battery since I bought the tractor in 07, it's all covered with dirt and dust, still cranks like new. No cottage here except in my wife's lasagna. I'm thinking that a new battery wont solve that problem, got to be something else going on. I suppose it could be a particle of pre-animate matter caught in the matrix.

 

[LarryD]

I can't comment on the "pre-animate matter caught in the matrix", I searched for a trail cam that might be able to detect one but it seems the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland has scooped all of them off E-Bay! :shocked:

As for the battery corrosion, I did all I could to prevent it on my '03 33D and nothing seemed to stop it. Clean/spray/connect/spray...everything short of encapsulating it in dielectric grease! Nothing appeared to help. This was the OEM battery so I can't say if it would off gas more than another brand but I can say since installing the Odyssey battery I have not touched the terminals. My unscientific guess is the "Sealed Lead Acid" battery was the solution. Maybe any SLA battery would produce the same results. Maybe moving the terminals several inches from the radiator was the answer, I just don't know. I do think 10 years on a battery is a grand thing!

As for the hydro cooler line problem, I purchased the NH hard line replacement parts. The problem seemed to be a very short pressure hose with a hard 90º bend in it. Restricted? When the issue was first discussed on the forum I looked at mine after a pretty good load on the tractor and it had swelled up like a ballpark frank. I didn't feel like blowing 9gl of hydraulic all over the engine compartment. The fix turned the soft connection into a straight line. Seemed to be basic engineering to me...but NH wasn't going to admit to an engineering latent defect, so no recall. $80 for the fix was less than two 5gl buckets of hydraulic fluid!

 

[John_Mc]

Your logic makes sense, especially considering the NH tractor specific corrosion issues.

Would be great to figure out why your model suffers the corrosion problems. Sounds like a dissimilar metals creating a battery situation with the hydraulic cooler being the possible culprit. The NH bulletin may require fittings that isolate the cooler from the chassis/tractor frame, thus eliminating the galvanic action of dissimilar metals in contact with each other.

It's possible the wet battery may off gas some corrosive gasses during use, which could contribute to the 'acidic" mix present under the hood, near the radiator and battery. The perfect storm of metals and acid gas, so to speak. That's all I can think of what could be occurring....

I don't think the oil cooler was a dissimilar metals thing, though that's an interesting possibility. I think they just used a part that was susceptible to corrosion in an area right smack above a battery that's getting cooked by the radiator. Couple that with a battery that may not be the best thing around (Original was an OEM, and I've got an OEM battery in there now.) That same part may have been fine if the battery wasn't having issues and sitting right under it?

 

[Oldpath05]

I can't comment on the "pre-animate matter caught in the matrix", I searched for a trail cam that might be able to detect one but it seems the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland has scooped all of them off E-Bay! :shocked:

As for the battery corrosion, I did all I could to prevent it on my '03 33D and nothing seemed to stop it. Clean/spray/connect/spray...everything short of encapsulating it in dielectric grease! Nothing appeared to help. This was the OEM battery so I can't say if it would off gas more than another brand but I can say since installing the Odyssey battery I have not touched the terminals. My unscientific guess is the "Sealed Lead Acid" battery was the solution. Maybe any SLA battery would produce the same results. Maybe moving the terminals several inches from the radiator was the answer, I just don't know. I do think 10 years on a battery is a grand thing!

Obviously not a Star Trek fan. This could happen to you if you don't take care of the pre-animate matter caught in the matrix, you'll get caught with your britches down and end up with cottage cheese on the battery's>>>>Star Trek II Wrath of Khan - Reliant Vs Enterprise; First Clash 1p - YouTube

Maybe you have something there about a sealed battery solving the cottage cheese problem, probably that's the kind of battery that's in my tractor, all's I got is dust and dirt on mine, but I thought sealed batterys been around for 20 years, they should be the only one's in tractors now.

 

[Coyote machine]

I don't think the oil cooler was a dissimilar metals thing, though that's an interesting possibility. I think they just used a part that was susceptible to corrosion in an area right smack above a battery that's getting cooked by the radiator. Couple that with a battery that may not be the best thing around (Original was an OEM, and I've got an OEM battery in there now.) That same part may have been fine if the battery wasn't having issues and sitting right under it?

Let's not overlook the radiator being cooled by the fan. Heat may be a contributing factor, I can't say without seeing the actual configuration under the hood. The oil cooler could easily be poorly located for maximum heat dissapation too. All combined your OEM batteries could be sitting in a very unfriendly environment for them to function normally. Heat is often the nail in the coffin for most wet cell type batteries. Too much heat could boil out the electrolyte, resulting in the gasses being present in significant quantity to cause the constant highly corrosive condition.
Do you have pics of the battery location and the cooler's location too?
If so, posting them might give a better picture of the conditions the battery lives in.
It may turn out your best option is to use a AGM type to treat the symptoms, vs. the cause. In your situation it would have the desired results, and the cause/effect would be rendered irrelevant.:confused3:

 

[Garandman]

We replace OEM batteries with AGM most of the time. Optima Red Top are light. Odyssey AGM are much heavier and store more. A Red Top for our van weighs 32 'bs. The Odyssey weighs 47.

Sears Duehard Platinum [only] are made by Odyssey. Whether it's worth the $$ once you fix the charging system is up to you. We use Battery Tender + charger on the tractor but Battery Tender Jr. On everything else: cheaper and longer cord. We have seven of them....