2n charging

[Anonymous-0]

hey guys, my dad was starting our 43 2n today and battery was dead. He put the battery on the charger (After removing from the tractor) and then in an effort to make sure the tractor was ready to plow, he jumped the tractor with the pickup with no battery in the tractor. My question is, did this or could this fry the regulator in the new 12 volt alternator i just installed? The volt gauge is pegged at 17 and the light now longer works in the gauge. I have a bad feeling something got ruined. thanks for your help in advance as always

 

[old]

Doing what he did should not have hurt any thing. Sounds more like your new alternator is bad. With the battery being dead it may have a short in it some place. Now days its common to get new bad parts, sad but happens all the time. About a month ago I put on a brand new, not rebuilt start on a friends 2000 GMC pick up and just last week he had to have the new one replaced
Hobby farm

 

[Dell (WA)]

Doug........Voltage meter pegged at 17-volts. Ain't goot. take yer alternator into an autoparts store for "free" checkout.........Dell

 

[JMOR]

A lot of details missing. 17v when running with battery installed? 17v with everything off? disconnected? It can be done, but usually takes awhile at high charge rate to get a 12v batt up to 17 volts.
Were the jumpers ever connected in reverse ? Disconnected after start while tractor still running?

If not, then it hardly matters whether the battery was in the PU, the tractor, or on the ground...it is in the circuit in normal position electrically.

 

[old]

JMOR made some good points. If you unhooked the jumper cables after the engine was started the alternator would see a badly discharged battery and do its best to charge it up fast and that could be why you got that reading. But if you also unhooked the jumper cables it could well have fried the alternator since they do try to charge thin air and air doesn't charge well and that fries them
Hobby farm

 

[souNdguy]

Old has a point.. that if the bat was dead.. alt may have had a problem anyway.. however.. running an alternator open circuit with no charge laod didn't do it any favors... My guess it is missing the smoke it needs to run on.. though the 'free check' will be telltale..

Taking the charge load of fthe alt, but still giving it an electrical circuit ( ignition ) could be akin to running downt he road pedal to the metal, then pressing the clutch and holding it down while keeping thre gas floored... engine don't like that with no load... don't last long..

soundguy

 

[9NJoe]

Doug,

The likelihood that you fried the alternator is pretty slim. Those engineers who design that stuff always consider that the battery might be open or a fusible link might go south so they bound the output of the regulator. I guess you found out that open circuit and no load, the upper limit is 17 volts (maybe more if your volt meter only goes that high).

When I screwed up and did it on mine a few years ago, the voltage went up to 22 volts. Fortunately, I don't have any lights and I turned it off before the coil fried. Reconnected the battery properly and it fired right up and regulated properly.

The reason your light died was your 12 volt power went up to 17 volts or more. You overvoltaged the light and it blew out, maybe even stuck the volt meter up at 17 volts by slamming it so hard. Now the coil has a resistor in series with it so running it at 17 volts for a minute or so probably wont hurt that at all.

If it were mine, I would put a fully charged good battery in it, put a DC voltmeter across the battery and start it up. If it goes up to 17 volts again, you indeed have a bad regulator.

My guess is that you pummeled the gauge and its all still OK.

Joe

 

[Anonymous-0]

Thanks guys. I will put a battery in it and see what my digital meter reads with it running. sometimes the obvious escapes me. The reason I was concerned is that this alternator was just purchased last year from a local vendor that sets them up to run in n fords and I had a fair amount invested in it. thanks for all the responses.