Why is my Battery dead

C

cubby

Active member
I worked all day on Wednesday on my H. I charged the battery on a slow charge for 36 hours.After replacing my starter switch and cleaning all the connections it started right up. I went down on Thursday about 3:30 and tried to start it and it will not even turn over. There is barely enough juice in the battery to lite up my test lite when hooked to the battery. My question i guess is how do i find a direct short that is draining my battery. The tractor ran fine yesterday and i did not see any sparks,or anything that looked like it was a direct ground.The starter is rebuilt,I check the wires on the starter switch.I looked at the cables where they hook onto the battery posts and saw nothing wrong there. Any advice or Ideas. Thanks
 
How old is the battery? You may find that even though it will take a full charge, it won't maintain it for long. Is the electrolyte topped off?
 
also make sure your lights are not turned to dim. they are not bright enough to notice unless it is pretty dark. Only one guess how I learned that. The relay in your cut out/voltage regulator can be sticking shut also.
 
The first thing to try is to disconnect the ground cable from the battery and fully charge the battery again. Wait for a day, or however long it took to go dead before. Hook the cable back up and try to start it. If the battery is dead again, you have a bad battery. If it starts up, you have a short somewhere to chase down.
 
Don't know if this is helpful to your problem battery or not. I always unhook one cable at the battery pole if the tractor is sitting any length of time, and always do so if sitting overnight.
Bernard
Donegal Cub.
 
Battery charged up. One battery cable disconnected. All switches off. Multimeter on highest amp setting - connect in series between disconnected battery cable and the battery terminal.

An amp draw on the multimeter will indicate a short - some place.

The only unswitched appliance is the voltage regulator. Disconnect the battery terminal from the voltage regulator, then test for amp draw again.

Continuity test provides the same results. Multimeter Ohms setting. Multimeter in series from disconnected battery cable to battery cable still attached to the battery.
 
thanks again for all the help. I will work on things over the weekend and let you all know what i find.Rick
 
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