Toolcat suddenly shut down while driving

[hardhat]

2011 F-series 480 hours. Perfect until today. Was driving back home with load of wood in the bucket and machine suddenly stopped. Like I had hit the stop button, but display went dark, a/c fan shut off. lights went out. Like someone had suddenly pulled the plug. I hit the enter code button a few times and lights on display came on, flickered and went off, then nothing. can't get it to do anything period.

I visually checked fuses, they are good, switched some relays in the panel box under driver's seat.. No difference. It seems like a loose connection to me. Oh light in cabin won't work. Like the main power line is loose. Up till this point everything was good, battery is still good as the inverter I put on the toolcat still works.

Any ideas here?

 

[hardhat]

Battery terminal had corroded. Terminal looked ok at battery, but there is a stud on the terminal that another wire hooks to. This other wire is apparently power for just about everything. The main cable goes straight to starter it seems. This also means that the alternator feeds the battery through the main cable and not the cable that powers the cabin otherwise, things would've continued running off the alternator.

Anyhow, got to get new battery terminal and will be good to go. I got it hooked back up good enough to start the machine and confirm that was the problem.

 

[texasjohn]

great you got it figured out, and it's a reasonably simple fix.

 

[Xfaxman]

:thumbsup: Guess I need to check mine.

 

[hardhat]

Got it fixed better today. Got a new battery terminal clamp. The one that came on it broke when I tightened it down. So cut the old clamp off with grinder. Was kind of worried as the big cable had very little extra slack, so I cut as little off as possible. Got a new clamp where you shove the wire in the end and it has 2 bolts that tighten down to hold the wire, I put both cables in there and tightened it down. Works great.

If you look at yours, raise the wire cover up and you will see a stud in there with a ring connector hooked to another good sized red wire. This is the power for cab, computer, everything. I guess the big cable just goes to starter and alternator. Interesting that bobcat did it this way. Guess there are lots of ways to skin a cat.

I will tell you that I was very worried when this happened because I would've had a heck of a time getting this thing on a trailer. Probably would've just got my credit card out and called bobcat.

BTW, machine has 501 hours not 480, so I did the 500 hr service at the same time fixing the battery. You can get to the case drain filter without rasing the radiator, just a PITA. I just took muffler off to get to it. You have to take muffler off whether or not you raise the radiator I think.

My wife pointed out that if I would've done the 500 hr service at 500 hrs and not 501 this would not have happened

She likes to mess with me.

Great to have you guys here as a resource. Thanks, all