I’ve got my dad’s old 1973 820, and he installed a lower radiator hose heater when he bought it new. I plug it in 1/2 hr before using it and she fires right up. Even at zero or below temps.
350c
New member
"Plug in heater is on machine, but often times the need is unanticipated." Might want to consider a timer; having the heater come on for a short period even when tractor not used won't hurt, other than the low cost of the electricity used over the short period.
I have a JLG 40 H boom lift that was always slow cranking even with a new battery. I would have to put a battery booster on it in order to get it to start. One day I was in harbor freight and saw an amp wiring kit 2 6ft long 00 wires . Replaced the cables and it’s like a new machine . 1993 ford industrial gas motor but the long cable runs were the problem .
John_Mc
Elite Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2001
- Messages
- 4,489
- Location
- Monkton, Vermont
- Tractor
- NH TC33D Modified with belly pan, limb risers & FOPS. Honda Pioneer 520 & antique Coot UTV
Diesels are compression ignition engines: they rely on the heat generated from the compression as the cylinder moves to ignite the fuel. The heat that fuel sees is proportion to the speed of the compression. So while a gas engine might start with slow cranking (since the spark plug still fires), a diesel engine is more directly affected. Possible causes of slow cranking:
Some steps to check the battery:
If your battery is the flooded lead-acid type with removable caps on the caps, open the caps and fill to the appropriate level with DISTILLED water. (Many flooded lead-acid batteries have a sort of "split ring" inside or other indicator: you fill up to that point.)
Charge the battery, let it rest for a few hours and measure voltage. For a 12V flooded lead-acid battery it should measure right around 12.7 volts. If you let it sit overnight, it should still measure close to that voltage the next day (a significant drop in voltage indicates either a parasitic draw on the battery, or internal battery problems). Use a known accurate voltmeter for these tests (The Harbor Freight $6-7 voltmeters are good for rough indications, or indicating that this battery is showing the same it was yesterday, but I've found that they vary from one unit to another, sometimes by as much as 0.5 volts.) If you are concerne dthat your tractor may have some phantom loads, which are discharging the battery when not in use, you may want to try this test with the battery disconnected.
Measure voltage while cranking the engine. If it drops way down (like 10.x volts on a 12 volt battery) that's an indication of a problem: it could be in the battery or the connections.
A battery that drops to +/- 11 volts or so just while resting for a few days likely has a shorted cell. That battery is probably junk.
Letting a battery sit in a discharged or partially discharged state for an extended time causes sulfation in the battery, lowering battery output and shortening it's life. Heavy sulfation can sometimes mimic the symptoms of a bad cell. A You can try putting a charger/maintainer on the battery that has a desulfation feature. I've had luck recovering some moderately sulfated batteries with this. Note that if the battery has significant sulfation, it can take a week or more of desulfating it to really make headway in recovering it, if it can be recovered at all.
If you have a two battery system, you should always replace the batteries at the same time. This is true whether your batteries are connected in parallel (still a 12V system) or in series (creating a 24V electrical system).
Electrical Connections:
Poor electrical connections can cause your batteries not to charge fully from the tractor's charging system. Chronic undercharging causes sulfation (as mentioned above) and shortens the life of the battery.
Clean the top of the battery: sometimes the accumulation of acids, oils, dirt, etc forms a conductive path between the posts, causing a slow drain on the battery even when not in use. Even just wiping it clean with a rag or paper towel can help. I sometimes wipe it down with a mix of baking soda and water, which neutralizes any acids which may have collected on the top of the battery (sometimes the battery will outgas acid fumes when charging). If you see things fizzing while doing this, that's an indication you had residual acid on the top of the battery. NOTE: be VERY careful not to get any of the baking soda and water into the battery cells.
As others have already mentioned: Clean the connections at the batteries and at the grounds. Check where the negative cable on a negative ground tractor attaches to the frame, and look for other areas where electrical connections are attached to the frame. Also look at the positive connections. Pay special attention to connections at the batteries, starter, and alternator or generator. After going through the connections, charge the battery and try the tests mentioned above to see if things have changed.
Hydraulic and engine oil viscosity:
One of the first things I do when buying used equipment is change all the fluids and filters. You never know what the previous owner used or whether they actually replaced them at appropriate intervals. (In RARE cases, I'll make an exception to replacing fluids if I know the previous owner personally, and know they are the type to take meticulous care of their equipment.) Find out what viscosity is recommended for your make/model tractor in the temperatures you expect to see in your area. If your tractor is old enough that it recommends single viscosity oils, consider substituting a modern multi-viscosity oil to cover the temperature range you expect to see.
Starter issues:
I went through all the steps I could think of when I had trouble starting my 20+ year old tractor a couple of years ago. It had first developed issues starting in colder weather. My block heater had died, but the hard starting was happening even in temperatures where I had not needed to preheat in the past. For a time, I could overcome this by cycling the glow plugs a couple of times before starting. Eventually, the temperature at which it would start crept up to the poitn where I was having to crank the engine for significantly longer, and sometimes multiple glow plug scycles still resulted in difficult starting. I was stumped, so I brought it in for service. They found that the starter was going bad and cranking too slowly. The engine wasn't generating enough heat at the slower cranking speed to ignite the fuel (not an issue in warmer weather, and that's why the multiple glow plug cycles sometimes helped). They replaced the starter, and it's been starting easily ever since. The starter had deteriorated gradually enough that I had not really noticed the difference in cranking speed. I could certainly tell the differenc ewhen they replaced it.
- Weak battery/batteries
- poor electrical connections in the battery to starter circuit
- Wrong viscosity engine oil (and/or hydraulic oil, on some tractors)
- Starter going bad
- Some diesel engine designs just don't handle cold starts as well. You may have to resign yourself to preheating in cold weather.
Some steps to check the battery:
If your battery is the flooded lead-acid type with removable caps on the caps, open the caps and fill to the appropriate level with DISTILLED water. (Many flooded lead-acid batteries have a sort of "split ring" inside or other indicator: you fill up to that point.)
Charge the battery, let it rest for a few hours and measure voltage. For a 12V flooded lead-acid battery it should measure right around 12.7 volts. If you let it sit overnight, it should still measure close to that voltage the next day (a significant drop in voltage indicates either a parasitic draw on the battery, or internal battery problems). Use a known accurate voltmeter for these tests (The Harbor Freight $6-7 voltmeters are good for rough indications, or indicating that this battery is showing the same it was yesterday, but I've found that they vary from one unit to another, sometimes by as much as 0.5 volts.) If you are concerne dthat your tractor may have some phantom loads, which are discharging the battery when not in use, you may want to try this test with the battery disconnected.
Measure voltage while cranking the engine. If it drops way down (like 10.x volts on a 12 volt battery) that's an indication of a problem: it could be in the battery or the connections.
A battery that drops to +/- 11 volts or so just while resting for a few days likely has a shorted cell. That battery is probably junk.
Letting a battery sit in a discharged or partially discharged state for an extended time causes sulfation in the battery, lowering battery output and shortening it's life. Heavy sulfation can sometimes mimic the symptoms of a bad cell. A You can try putting a charger/maintainer on the battery that has a desulfation feature. I've had luck recovering some moderately sulfated batteries with this. Note that if the battery has significant sulfation, it can take a week or more of desulfating it to really make headway in recovering it, if it can be recovered at all.
If you have a two battery system, you should always replace the batteries at the same time. This is true whether your batteries are connected in parallel (still a 12V system) or in series (creating a 24V electrical system).
Electrical Connections:
Poor electrical connections can cause your batteries not to charge fully from the tractor's charging system. Chronic undercharging causes sulfation (as mentioned above) and shortens the life of the battery.
Clean the top of the battery: sometimes the accumulation of acids, oils, dirt, etc forms a conductive path between the posts, causing a slow drain on the battery even when not in use. Even just wiping it clean with a rag or paper towel can help. I sometimes wipe it down with a mix of baking soda and water, which neutralizes any acids which may have collected on the top of the battery (sometimes the battery will outgas acid fumes when charging). If you see things fizzing while doing this, that's an indication you had residual acid on the top of the battery. NOTE: be VERY careful not to get any of the baking soda and water into the battery cells.
As others have already mentioned: Clean the connections at the batteries and at the grounds. Check where the negative cable on a negative ground tractor attaches to the frame, and look for other areas where electrical connections are attached to the frame. Also look at the positive connections. Pay special attention to connections at the batteries, starter, and alternator or generator. After going through the connections, charge the battery and try the tests mentioned above to see if things have changed.
Hydraulic and engine oil viscosity:
One of the first things I do when buying used equipment is change all the fluids and filters. You never know what the previous owner used or whether they actually replaced them at appropriate intervals. (In RARE cases, I'll make an exception to replacing fluids if I know the previous owner personally, and know they are the type to take meticulous care of their equipment.) Find out what viscosity is recommended for your make/model tractor in the temperatures you expect to see in your area. If your tractor is old enough that it recommends single viscosity oils, consider substituting a modern multi-viscosity oil to cover the temperature range you expect to see.
Starter issues:
I went through all the steps I could think of when I had trouble starting my 20+ year old tractor a couple of years ago. It had first developed issues starting in colder weather. My block heater had died, but the hard starting was happening even in temperatures where I had not needed to preheat in the past. For a time, I could overcome this by cycling the glow plugs a couple of times before starting. Eventually, the temperature at which it would start crept up to the poitn where I was having to crank the engine for significantly longer, and sometimes multiple glow plug scycles still resulted in difficult starting. I was stumped, so I brought it in for service. They found that the starter was going bad and cranking too slowly. The engine wasn't generating enough heat at the slower cranking speed to ignite the fuel (not an issue in warmer weather, and that's why the multiple glow plug cycles sometimes helped). They replaced the starter, and it's been starting easily ever since. The starter had deteriorated gradually enough that I had not really noticed the difference in cranking speed. I could certainly tell the differenc ewhen they replaced it.
John Joseph McVeigh
Gold Member
That link does not work for me. It triggers a 404 error Message ("Page Not Found"). However, this one does work for me.
John Joseph McVeigh
Gold Member
The above is an extract of a very good and comprehensive post by John_Mc. (Not me.)
The one thing that I would add is that, if one gets a low-voltage reading while cranking the engine, the significance of that reading depends upon exactly where one is taking the reading.
If the battery is well-charged, and if the probes of the voltmeter are held directly against the battery's terminals, and if the voltage sags unduly when the battery is placed under load, then that voltage sag indicates that the battery probably needs replacement.
On the other hand, if the voltmeter's positive probe is held against the positive terminal on the starter's solenoid, and if the negative probe is held against some point on the chassis of the tractor, and if the measured voltage sags when the tractor is cranked, then the cause may be resistance between one or the other (or both) of the battery's terminals and the cable(s) to which that terminal is (those terminals are) attached, or the cause may be resistance between the positive cable and the terminal to which it is attached, or the cause may be resistance between casing of the starter and the chassis (or resistance inside the solenoid or the starter), or the cause may be resistance between the negative terminal of the battery and the chassis.
The battery, the cables, the starter solenoid, and the starter together form an electrical circuit... an electrical loop. The sum of the voltage drops all of the way around the loop must equal zero. This is Kirchhoff's Second Law (also known as Kirchhoff's Loop Law or Kirchhoff's Voltage Law).
So, if the battery, when cranking, develops 12 volts (measured directly across its terminals), and only 10 volts appears between the positive terminal of the solenoid and the casing of the starter (or the chassis), then those other 2 volts are due to resistance or resistances somewhere in the loop.
One can use a voltmeter to measure the voltage drop across each element of the circuit (of the loop). The voltage drop across each element of the circuit will be directly proportional to the amount of resistance that that element presents when the battery is under load... that is, when the operator tries to crank the engine.
For best performance of the starter, one wants to keep the resistances as low as possible, so that the starter sees as much as possible of the voltage that the battery generates, and so that the starter receives as large a current from the battery as possible. If they are high enough, resistances in the circuit, e.g., due to corrosion between the battery terminals and the battery cables, deprive the starter of voltage and can starve the starter of the current that the starter needs to vigorously crank the engine.
Last edited:
aircommuter
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2012
- Messages
- 605
- Location
- coulterville,ca
- Tractor
- case 570lxt, JCB 1550B, Gradall 534c, Hyster C612B,Ford 445A
The use of the words turn over are often misused. Do you mean that it turns over but slowly? Or does turn over at about the same speed as it does when it’s warmer but not start? We need to know if it is electrical or other issues. From the electrical standpoint you have to follow up with the information given above and you should have a minimum of 9.6 volts at the starter when cranking. Load testing batteries today is kinda old hat. The modern thing is a conductance type tester like Midtronics.
jdmeth
Bronze Member
I have a 510 and when it needed new batteries I just bought one large 12v. It was cheaper then 2 six volts and dropped right in. I do not know if the 310 has the same battery compartment, you will have to measure to see if one will fit and if it has the same cold cranking amps.
