No power to JD 4200

[bhu100]

Tractor was running good a few weeks ago. Over the holiday I wired in some LED cube lights for additional visibility. After I wired them up I verified they worked but I didn't start the tractor. The switch has a small light that is always on, so it's always pulling current (though it shouldn't be much). A few days ago I went to start the tractor and it wouldn't crank. The operating lights on the dash were on but faint, so I assumed that my old battery needed to be replaced. After I installed the new battery I turned the key one position and noticed that all of the dash lights were fully lit. I then proceeded to turn it one more position to fire it up, and something 'clicked' and all power was gone. I tested the batter and confirmed it is fully charged. I pulled and tested the (30 amp) key switch fuse and confirmed that was still good and confirmed that there is power getting to it (12 amps getting to the fuse). When I put the fuse back in and turned the key, the operating lights came on again. Then when I tried to turn it over, something 'clicked' and they were off. There is currently no power to the switch.

Any ideas of what to check next? Starter? Solenoid? I heard about a small chip behind the fuse panel that can sometimes to bad? I bought the tractor used and don't know much about it, and am not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, but would like to try to diagnose/fix this myself if at all possible. It's 10 degrees here so it's not great weather to be 'tinkering' but I use the tractor to clear the driveway, and with a pregnant wife I need to make sure it's ready to go at all times!

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[MORRISONSTEEL]

I don't know anything about the fuse panel chip, but there is a bunch of relays in the panel. I think they are all the same so you could do some trial and error with swapping them around, you might verify the diagram is the same on each one I just Think that they are all the same may not be. Is the "click" you are hearing from fuel shut of solenoid?

 

[MORRISONSTEEL]

 

[bhu100]

Thanks. I'll try that when I get home. Perhaps a naive question, but do the relays simply pull out and plug in like the fuses?

I only heard the 'click' twice. Both times I was standing off to the side of the tractor (opposite the side of the starter). It sounded like it came from the fuse/relay panel, but the starter solenoid is fairly close to that, so I really can't say where the sound came from.

 

[MORRISONSTEEL]

Yep, just pull em out like a fuse, they will normally have a little wiring schematic on them so you can compare to the others to verify they are the same. Looks like according to the drawing there may be some spares you can play with.

 

[beenthere]

Over the holiday I wired in some LED cube lights for additional visibility.

Check your work on the lights carefully to see if all is really ok there.

 

[bhu100]

I wired the lights through a separate wiring harness with it's own switch that just connects to the battery, I didn't wire them into the existing harness/switch. They currently aren't connected to the battery so for all intensive purposes they are just sitting there with no power running to them. That was my first thought, perhaps I bumped something or pushed something loose when wiring, I ran the wiring along the frame and under the cab and it's really not near any existing wires/connectors/etc.

 

[MORRISONSTEEL]

As a side note, once you get your starting issue figured out. This tractor already has wiring available for additional light (unless you are already using). Att is inst to identify the existing leads that can operate off of the tractors light switch if interested. View attachment LIGHT.pdf

 

[mike48130]

It sounds like a connection issue. You probably have a bad connection on your battery ground cable or the positive to the starter terminal. It is a good enough connection to power the lights, but under a heavy load like the starter solenoid, you loos the connection. It could be corrosion, a bad cable, or a loose terminal. Did you loosen the ground cable on the frame to tie in the lights, or is it directly to the battery post? I would start with the ground screw to the frame, then the starter terminal to the battery. What you describe is typical of a bad connection.

I assume the battery connections are good since you put in a new battery, but could be checked as well. Did you clean the battery posts/cables with a wire brush battery cleaner before installing? Probably need to do on a tractor of that age.

 

[bhu100]

Thanks for the wiring diagram, I may try to rewire that this summer on a much more pleasant day!

I didn't loosen the ground cable, I tied in through the post. The negative cable looks good but the positive cable connector is in pretty bad shape. The head of the bolt is essentially missing and the connector is basically rusted together. I can remove the nut and loosened it enough to remove from the terminal to replace the battery, but perhaps it's not making a tight enough connection now. I can run out and try to pick one up from the local TSC and see if that solves the problem.

I did check the voltage on both the batter and the connector and pulled 12V from both so I assumed the connection was OK.