Massey Ferguson 135 electrical woes

scott123456789 · Sep 27, 2012

A brief back story, I purchased the tractor from my neighbor who moved back to the city. He has owned it at least the last 10 years. He only ran it a few days a year and got by with a dead battery jumping two get it running. I have more grass and lots of other projects and wanted to turn it into a daily driver type of tractor.

The previous owner did an alternator swap on the tractor and I believe went with a 3 wire setup. I bought a new battery for it and can already tell it was getting run down after a few starts and unhooking the battery when not in use. A few sketchy wires that I believe I finally cleaned up.

My concern is the alternator is not charging the battery for one of man reasons. First the only line run to the positive battery terminal in any way is the heavy cable to the starter. No line directly from the alternator or ammeter. The only way the battery could get any positive charge if positive current flowed across the starter solenoid?

Another issue is the ammeter never shows positive just stays in the middle.

scott123456789 · Sep 27, 2012

Shot of the alternator. The biggest line from the alternator bat. Terminal runs up to the ammeter.

The yellow line is the line from the alternator running by the solenoid up to the ammeter. The top is the positive battery and the bottom goes to the starter. The right prong appears to be from the keyed switch.

Shot of the gauges, is the brown box the original voltage regulator? I believe I read with it present you can not get a positive battery charge?

Does the setup appear correct or is it totally wrong? Is there a link to the appropriate setup for my situation? Not looking for the world but would like to be able to leave the battery hooked up and start it as needed.

Not sure what needs to do about the lack of lights.

The kid · Sep 28, 2012

The black box is the voltage regulator for your old dynamo (generator). If the new alternator is self regulating the block box and go bye bye. It will actually restrict full charging on a dead battery condition. Is this on a diesel? Alternators are really simpler that using a voltage regulator and more reliable. If you research auto gen to alt, it's the same principle If the alt is self regulating will make wiring simplified. People stick an alternator in where a generator was and leave all the generator and voltage regulator circuits and it later creates a mess. They use the voltage regulator as a terminal connection. I used a terminal block to clean up the wiring and make it easier to trace out for troubleshooting. A three wire Delco Remy actually uses only two wires in the charging circuit. One of the twin wires in the plug actually is jumped to the battery terminal, thus only two are routed thru your circuit.

jrmcdona · Jan 3, 2015

Scott did you get this fixed?

Yes Dear · Sep 7, 2015

Jrmcdona and Scott,
did you guys get a result with your charging issues.
I am going through the same and need some advise.
I have new battery, Alternator and new Vreg, been bench tested and is good.
the alt is showing 14.4 but up at the battery voltage is jumping all over the place.

Dave M7040 · Sep 7, 2015

Yes Dear.
Is your new alternator a GM style with internal regulator?
If you have the old black box shown in the earlier photos still connected it will be doing strange things as it tries to control the charging voltage.
The simplest way is to install the GM alternator as a one wire type as shown in the attached link.
http://www.tuffstuffperformance.com/pdf/1-wire_alternator_instructions.pdf
There are other more sophisticated ways to connect the alternators but that is for after you have the basic one working.
Dave M7040

jrmcdona · Sep 7, 2015

A fella replaced my alternator and also updated some of my wiring attached to that. I had some unnecessary and overly complicated things going on that didn't need to be.

My lights still don't work but the tractor starts up every time like a champ.

banjodunn · Sep 8, 2015

Yes Dear said:
Jrmcdona and Scott,
did you guys get a result with your charging issues.
I am going through the same and need some advise.
I have new battery, Alternator and new Vreg, been bench tested and is good.
the alt is showing 14.4 but up at the battery voltage is jumping all over the place.

G'day mate what alt are you using? Stick up some pics and I'll see if I can help you, how much is your bat voltage jumping?

Jon

Yes Dear · Sep 8, 2015

Here's the latest.
upgraded wire from alt to ampmeter to B+ battery post, cable is about 10mm across.
Checked volts across the battery and still the same fluctuation, volts constantly changing from 6-19- minus 3 to everything in between.
Bought new batteries for the 3 DMM.
DMM 1 still showed the same as above
DMM 2 (DSE) showed 12.7 with engine off then nothing when engine running
DMM 3 (Fluke) shows 12.7 with engine off and the 14.16-18 with engine running at 1200 RPM
Brand new ammeter hovering 1/3 into the +
All 3 DMM show correct volts on battery when engine not running.
New charge light comes on at ignition and then goes out when running.
Good earth between B- and chassis and chassis and engine block, all terminals soldered and earth points cleaned back to bare metal.
The alt is a Bosch off an old jap car with a brand new VR installed last week.
The old VR for the genie has been removed.

I am very confused.
PS thanks for your replies.