8N Battery Cables

[8N_John]

I'm replacing my battery cables on my 1952 8N (has been converted to 12V). The positive terminal connection has a white wire coming out of it (see photo). Is this the location that you would connect to if adding lights? I plan to add lights and need to know if I need to buy a cable that has a terminal connector with a slot for this wire.

Also, is a braided ground strap preferred over what I currently have?

[KennyV]

The extra wires molded into cable ends are typically used for charging circuits, but they don’t have to be used for that. If you use it be sure you place an inline fuse at that point, protect the wiring past the fuse. Also do not add more load than your charging system can keep up with, you may end up with a low charge in your battery, not good anytime but it is especially bad during the winter months. KennyV.

[beenthere]

From the pic it looks like a steel rod running across the top of the battery, with hooks at each end.

If it is (and I see it looks corroded), I'd be leary of it shorting out the battery. Just an observation, realize it wasn't the question (which was answered already).

[jinman]

John, I agree with Beenthere that your positive terminal looks like it is touching the hold-down clamp, but it doesn't look like it's hooked to anything. If you strap it down with a non-conductor, there will be no direct short, but if the strap gets wet or dirty, you could have a "bleed" type low current short.
The best method is to make sure your terminals do not touch any metal and keep the top of the battery clean and free of moisture.

If you want to find your short that is discharging your battery, remove the positive terminal and hook up an ohmmeter to it (black, neg, test lead to ground; red, pos, test lead to the removed positive terminal). Put the ohmmeter on the highest scale and see if the needle deflects. If it does, you are going to discharge your battery with a trickle bleed. As you noted in another post, the battery sparked when you connected the negative terminal. It should not do this.

With your meter connected, start removing wires one at a time to trace where the problem is located. If the meter shows infinite resistance when you remove a wire, you are on the right track. I'd start at the alternator. The other place that can bleed your battery is a partially shorted bad solenoid. Just use your logic to work throuh the system until you find the part that gives deflection on the meter when connected, but is open when removed.

To check your ammeter, just disconnect the wires and hook them together so they bypass the ammeter. If the problem goes away, your ammeter has an internal short to ground. To isolate the solenoid, remove the wire coming from the battery and the smaller wire. Hold these wires together so the rest of the circuit is complete. If you lose the short, look at your solenoid as the cause of the problem. If the 6-volt solenoid has been retained, it may be suffering from the additional starting current provided by the 12 volts. Just keep going and isolate/bypass one component at a time and you will locate your problem. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Don't forget to look at the connections to the ignition switch. There are lots of wires there in a small space, [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] and they could be touching.

[dummy]

If I remeber correctly, if you kept the 6 volt coil weren't you supposed to add a resitive element to the line to avoid "spiking" the coil? One of the things I would do, is order a new harness (relatively cheap @ ~ 15.00) and start from scratch with an internally regulated GM alternator. The kits available are pretty pricey considdering what you really get.

[8N_John]

Thanks for the good info! I hope I can figure it out, but I am new to electrical stuff. Does anyone have a pic of a 6V solenoid vs. a 12 Volt solenoid?

[Soundguy]

The front mount units had a 6v col that also used a ballast resistor ( A8NN12250A ). If you went to 12v, you needed to add the dropping resistor ( 8NE10306 ). Or upgrade to a newer tisco 12v coil, and then only use a 0.47 ohm 20 watt current limiting resistor.

Later 8n had side mount 6v coils and did not use the ballast resistor.. but still needed the dropping resistor to go to 12v, or you would need to change to a modern 12v ignition coil, like a NAPA IC14SB.

As for testing a solenoid.. seems like you could simply try it on a 6v and then on a 12v battery. The 6v will work on either, and the 12v will only pull in on the 12v battery, as it probably needs 8-9 volts to pull in.

Soundguy

[Soundguy]

The OEM 6v solenoid was 3 terminal, and internall hot.. the small 3rd terminal was hooked up to the big thumb switch which merely provided ground to the solenoid. Note: The solenoid only functioned correctly if the small 3rd terminal was facing the tractor, as it was wired internally hot.. to the incoming battery line.. if you re-orient the solenoid so that the small terminal faces out.. then the hot connection is on the starter side.. not the battery side.. and therefore the solenoid will not function.

TSC sells many small parts for the N series tractor.. they have a decent Tisco 6v replacement solenoid.

Soundguy