Jump starting the old tractor

I had an interesting battery failure in my Series III a few decades ago.

I had just left the Strezelecki Track aiming for the Birdsville Track when the battery suddenly refused to bring the starter motor to life even though the CB radio was obviously working.

The crank handle easily started the engine and once running, there was no evidence of a problem.

A week or so later I replaced the battery in Broken Hill and was told that the connection between a couple of cells had broken. Assuming that diagnosis was correct, I guess that means the tiny bit of current needed to operate the radio could flow through the electrolyte and that there was enough current flowing to provide spark.

It was a long time ago, so I have no idea what test was done on the battery to diagnose the problem.

It might have been a bit more inconvenient if it weren't for the crank handle on the Series III. :)

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Dave and while I completely agree with you, but you are talking about “one-Up” situations.

These occur but they are not the norm.

My post was about what DC was claiming, and that his claim is the exact opposite of what is the norm.

I would probably average one or two phone calls a month, from customers who have had their cranking battery going flat every second or third day, and they had to charge it up over night.

They usually phone me after they had gone to their local autoelec or battery supplier and after the battery is tested, the first thing the customer is told, is the battery is fine and they are next told that the isolator is the cause of the flat battery.

When they phone me, I would then ask them to charge the batteries while the isolator was connected, then once the batteries are fully charged, to disconnect the isolator, by either setting the In-Cab switch to STORAGE Mode, or physically removing the cable running between the isolator and the cranking battery.

In almost every case, the cranking battery has died overnight. They replace their cranking battery and everything now works properly.

I am not talking about “one-Up” situations, I am talking about hundreds of customers coming across the same problem.

The above not only demonstrates that modern cranking batteries will hold a surface charge, and for quite some time, it also proves that my isolators, as stated for many years now, allows the auxiliary battery to support and maintain the cranking battery.

While in these situations, it is an extreme case, but it still shows that, with my isolators, the auxiliary battery has played apart in extending the operating lifespan of the cranking battery.

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its getting more and more common especially in batteries that are cheap knock offs of good batteries, at one stage I was seeing about 1 a week, turned out that 3 months prior some one tryng to save or make a buck had bought cheap knock offs for the store rather than the genuine ite.m

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I had an interesting battery failure in my Series III a few decades ago.

I had just left the Strezelecki Track aiming for the Birdsville Track when the battery suddenly refused to bring the starter motor to life even though the CB radio was obviously working.

The crank handle easily started the engine and once running, there was no evidence of a problem.

A week or so later I replaced the battery in Broken Hill and was told that the connection between a couple of cells had broken. Assuming that diagnosis was correct, I guess that means the tiny bit of current needed to operate the radio could flow through the electrolyte and that there was enough current flowing to provide spark.

It was a long time ago, so I have no idea what test was done on the battery to diagnose the problem.

It might have been a bit more inconvenient if it weren't for the crank handle on the Series III. :)

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that happens when the electrolyte is able to corrode the base metal of the interlink connections or the plate the lead in the battery is deposited on.

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Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

its getting more and more common especially in batteries that are cheap knock offs of good batteries, at one stage I was seeing about 1 a week, turned out that 3 months prior some one tryng to save or make a buck had bought cheap knock offs for the store rather than the genuine ite.m

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Hi again Dave and being as the OP is talking about a tractor battery, maybe they are crap, can’t really comment on them.

But with more than 5,000 Land Rover customers alone, and many thousands of non Land Rover customers, yes there is the occasional failure, but I am just not seeing any real numbers at all, of vehicle batteries failing in this way.

Again, with tractor batteries, it may be a different situation?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi again Dave and being as the OP is talking about a tractor battery, maybe they are crap, can’t really comment on them.

But with more than 5,000 Land Rover customers alone, and many thousands of non Land Rover customers, yes there is the occasional failure, but I am just not seeing any real numbers at all, of vehicle batteries failing in this way.

Again, with tractor batteries, it may be a different situation?

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depends on failure method and a bunch of things generally landrovers are pretty gentle on batteries as are most four wheel drives and trucks I think the best failure I've ever seen on a battery was a dozer battery that was long abused and left without a cover, between the heat of being near the exhaust on one side and always left in the sun the whole side of the battery just cracked away when the dozer dropped onto the idlers a bit hard one day looked like someone had had a bad go at it with a chainsaw.

Plates and links looked pretty good at that point too.

I have 350A Anderson plugs in jumper lead function. As long as the wire is up to the task and connected properly they will work fine.

I have 2 tractors, one a diesel and they crank it fine. The connectors are about the size of a video cassette and the wire acts as heat sink for the connectors too!

Good luck with it
z