finding the charge

[plowmaster 0]

i really dont know about how to go describing the wire mess i have under the hood of the charger 12, so ill post some pics and hopefully someone here can diagnose it.

the machine runs fine, and with the help of a wiring diagram i was able to get all the lights working, useless without a charged battery.

when the battery gets real low, ill jump start it and as i remove the cables, the tractor will loose all power and die. ive been keeping it trickle charged as its a new battery.

id like to know witch wire to hook where in order to get some juice back to the battery. it seems theres two loose wires coming out of the front of the engine, and two wires in one sheath coming out of the engine just above and in front of the starter motor. total of four.

the PO installed a different ign system, and these loose wires are making me nervous, not to mention the dead battery syndrome. i hope the pics can help.

thanks.

[Sparky-(Admin) 19,538]

I'm pretty sure that the pair of wires in the first pic are AC voltage, like 34-37 volts I think. They both go to a voltage regulater/rectifier which will convert it to 12-14 volts DC.

I hope that gets you started in the right direction.

Mike............

[plowmaster 0]

the voltage regulator (or is it rectifier?) would be the one with the heat sinks mounted beneith the dash, with three spade terminals? if so, there wasnt anything hooked to it, so i removed it.

the manual says two wires go to the rectifier and one goes back to the switch, so should i take the two wires in the sheath, install female spade connectors and hook them up to the rectifier? then make a wire to go from the rectifier to the switch? on the switch, should it be lugged to the acc stud or the ign stud?

thanks!

[MaineDad 85]

Yeah you need the rectifier back in the mix. The battery is 12volts and the rectifier converts it to 12volts.

[TT-(Moderator) 1,127]

WOW, Jon!

That's quite a "rats nest" you have going on there!

The first thing I would do is get rid of a bunch of those wires and throw them in the trash.

That tractor originally had Solid-State ignition with a three wire stator, so the wire coming out of the front side of the engine (that splits in to 3 wires) can be removed now.

The ignition coil is an external resistor unit (Bosch - probably from a Volkswagen) and should be fine if you keep the resistor with it. Otherwise, you'll burn the points on a regular basis. The coil wiring looks to be fine -- very messy, but correct.

The two wires coming out of the back side of the engine both go to the terminals marked "A.C." on the rectifier/regulator that you removed from inside the hoodstand. With the engine running at full throttle, you should get a reading of 24 to 28 VAC from these two wires.

The third terminal on the R/R is marked "B+" and is the DC output for charging the battery. Since you didn't post a picture of the back of the ignition switch, I can't tell you exactly where to hook the "B+" wire, but look for a terminal on the switch marked "R". When you get the stator wires hooked up to the R/R and run the engine at full throttle, you should get a meter reading of 13 to 16 VDC between this wire and chassis ground.

[plowmaster 0]

my switch is not original, i wish i would have taken a pic, cause i cant see it now. theres one post in the middle thats connected to the battery, another post connected to the starter. after that theres two more posts, one for acc and another for ign.

should i connect the output lead of the r/r to the acc post, or directly to the battery?

thanks.

[TT-(Moderator) 1,127]

Are you sure there isn't a third smaller terminal? Maybe it's broke off.

Hooking the "B+" lead to the "acc" terminal should work, but that's where the headlight switch "feed" wire should attach too.