With some help and courage from this forum I got the old 850 to crank again.
I did a lot of things all at once so not sure what the real culprit was.
I took the battery out and put it on my charger. It read 0% charge so that would explain it, BUT - several hours later it was charged and held charge over night. I've since run the tractor twice with same battery and its fine. I find it odd that the battery had died like that but now appears to hold a charge.(?). Maybe it will fail again soon?
I did clean all the terminals and all wires except up under the "dash" cause its real hard to get in there. All is clean and bright.
In my original post, I had turned the tractor off because the oil pressure was running around 25 instead of its normal 40 - 50. I stopped to add oil since I knew it was leaking out around the pan gasket and I was low on the dipstick. Now that its running again with oil up to the "full" mark on the dipstick, the pressure is back up over 40.
I was expecting an oil pan gasket today but it didnt arrive!
I also pulled the plugs just in case hydrolock was the issue.
On a side note - since I "had to" take the air cleaner off and the battery pan (thing it sits on) in order to easily get at everything, I cleaned up and painted both red. Now I have a badly sunburned burned 850 with shiny red air cleaner and battery pan. My wife said "is painting that whole thing going to be your project now instead of doing all the work on the house and such?" - guess I'll have to do my chores.
Thanks for your help folks.
I did a lot of things all at once so not sure what the real culprit was.
I took the battery out and put it on my charger. It read 0% charge so that would explain it, BUT - several hours later it was charged and held charge over night. I've since run the tractor twice with same battery and its fine. I find it odd that the battery had died like that but now appears to hold a charge.(?). Maybe it will fail again soon?
I did clean all the terminals and all wires except up under the "dash" cause its real hard to get in there. All is clean and bright.
In my original post, I had turned the tractor off because the oil pressure was running around 25 instead of its normal 40 - 50. I stopped to add oil since I knew it was leaking out around the pan gasket and I was low on the dipstick. Now that its running again with oil up to the "full" mark on the dipstick, the pressure is back up over 40.
I was expecting an oil pan gasket today but it didnt arrive!
I also pulled the plugs just in case hydrolock was the issue.
On a side note - since I "had to" take the air cleaner off and the battery pan (thing it sits on) in order to easily get at everything, I cleaned up and painted both red. Now I have a badly sunburned burned 850 with shiny red air cleaner and battery pan. My wife said "is painting that whole thing going to be your project now instead of doing all the work on the house and such?" - guess I'll have to do my chores.
Thanks for your help folks.
