Electrical on M-F

[Levi Keech]

Over the past few months we have had trouble with the lights on our M-F 1135. At first they would flicker then stay on, then they wouldn't turn on at all (which is a real pain when chores take an hour and a half and you only have 45 min. of daylite by the time you get home) well now they started workin again, go figure, but after awhile the cab starts to smell like burned wires, and tonite even, I had smaoke rolling out from under the dash. We checked the wires leading to the dash but there was no feed wire with the test lite. Is it the switch or is it a wire. Got me baffled.

 

[muleman]

It is probably a loose or corroded connection in the switch terminals or the contacts in the switch itself. What can happen is the looseness or corrosion causes the flow of electricity to be erratic (flickering lights)or not flow at all (no lights). What can happen then is the looseness welds or the corrosion burns through enough that the lights will come on. This poor contact causes higher current flow and heating than normal (smoke and burnt smell). I don't know exactly how it is on an 1135, but most likely if you look at the switch you will find your hotspot on the terminals or inside. If it is hot on the inside it may show resin melted or a blackened case. I would check the switch first to see what it looks like. If it ran that way long enough the switch and wires could both be bad. If it doesn't look too bad clean and tighten the connections and see what happens. Good luck.

 

[El Toro]

Its probably a wire if it smells. There should be a feed wire to the switch and then voltage is fed to your lights when you turn on the light switch. You need to check the feed wire to the switch for any breaks. If you're not sure replace the feed wire. You probably should check the wires from the switch to the lights. I would replace them if they don't look too great. I would use soldered lugs or spades on the new wiring. Hal

 

[Don-Wi]

Had a similar problem on our 285 once. There is a white plastic block that holds all the wires in the correct place to plug onto the back of the light switch. The terminals got a little corroded and some pulled back a little bit out of the plastic block, causing some of the connections to be poor and it ended up melting the block.

You can either replace the block (AGCO has them at a very reasonable price) or get rid of it and just make sure you know where all the wires connect on the switch. Some of the terminals on the wires may need to be replaced as well.

Donovan from Wisconsin