brain55
Veteran Member
I was at a new customer's place replacing the o-rings on the governor shafts in the injection pump on his Ford 445C and a couple other little things. When I was wrapping up he lead me over to his M7030 in a tentative kind of way.
I told him that now we were getting into my wheelhouse. He seemed surprised that I considered Kubota's my specialty. Apparently a couple years earlier he paid somebody good money to repair the charging system that they clearly didn't fix. He had been charging the battery and jump starting the tractor nearly everytime he wanted to use it for more than 2 years. The alternator was disconnected because he was afraid of burning another one up.
I started by replacing the cheap auto store clamp on negative battery terminal and cleaning the chassis ground. I was surprised that it started right up he had warned me that even though he had charged the battery it may not start. After I made sure it would start I hooked the alternator back up, and sure enough it wasn't charging. I quickly noticed that the glow plug indicator seemed to stay on longer that it should and discovered the glow plugs were constantly powered with the key on. There also wasn't any power to the exciter wire at the alternator. I had a workshop manual but it was for the earlier model with an external regulator.
I decided to just go ahead and split the harness and trace wires back to ignition switch. As soon as I removed the ignition switch I thought I had found the problem when one of the wires broke off in the connector. That wasn't it though. It took me a little bit to figure out, the spliced in wire to the fuel shut-off solenoid should have been more of a give away. Somehow whoever had "fixed" the electrical system before had switched the ignition wire and the glow plug wire and their fix so it would run was to splice a wire to power the fuel solenoid. Unfortunately the alternator never got excited and the glow plugs were always on draining the battery that much quicker.
The moral of the story is: If you dont understand how the electrical system works, don't mess with it, or beware of who you pay to fix your tractor.
Brian
I told him that now we were getting into my wheelhouse. He seemed surprised that I considered Kubota's my specialty. Apparently a couple years earlier he paid somebody good money to repair the charging system that they clearly didn't fix. He had been charging the battery and jump starting the tractor nearly everytime he wanted to use it for more than 2 years. The alternator was disconnected because he was afraid of burning another one up.
I started by replacing the cheap auto store clamp on negative battery terminal and cleaning the chassis ground. I was surprised that it started right up he had warned me that even though he had charged the battery it may not start. After I made sure it would start I hooked the alternator back up, and sure enough it wasn't charging. I quickly noticed that the glow plug indicator seemed to stay on longer that it should and discovered the glow plugs were constantly powered with the key on. There also wasn't any power to the exciter wire at the alternator. I had a workshop manual but it was for the earlier model with an external regulator.
I decided to just go ahead and split the harness and trace wires back to ignition switch. As soon as I removed the ignition switch I thought I had found the problem when one of the wires broke off in the connector. That wasn't it though. It took me a little bit to figure out, the spliced in wire to the fuel shut-off solenoid should have been more of a give away. Somehow whoever had "fixed" the electrical system before had switched the ignition wire and the glow plug wire and their fix so it would run was to splice a wire to power the fuel solenoid. Unfortunately the alternator never got excited and the glow plugs were always on draining the battery that much quicker.
The moral of the story is: If you dont understand how the electrical system works, don't mess with it, or beware of who you pay to fix your tractor.
Brian
