Quick run down.. Had a Bday party for my son, I had the BH parked out so the kids could play in it. Silly me I left the Key in it and 2-3 later when I went to move it the key was on and batteries were dead. I boosted 2-3 times ran it for a couple hrs each time but the batteries were done. SO.. I bought 2 new batteries and made some new cables. Now I'm out in my field replacing the batteries and cables when I break the bolt the holds the ground to the Chassis. this bolt also holds the battery box on and there's on 2 bolts left so I figure better do it right and bring the BH back to the house so I can weld a new Ground bolt on and whatever. SO I try jumping the started directly from the battery and it just would turn over fast enough, I get my truck and try same thing, I get my buddy to come over with his Cummins and 2 new batteries and same thing. So I figure the starter is gone, I take it off and bring it in to get rebuilt. Guy at the shops tells me started looks brandnew he can't see anything wrong with it. He replaces a few parts and give it back. I install the starter same deal, wire up the batteries same thing. My BUddy comes over and we go over everything and can't find anything wrong. I'm thinking the starter draws to much under load. I call the guy at the Rebuild shop and he says starter was good my probably is that I didn't have the batteries grounded? So I tried tonight same deal. Any ideas? should I spring for a new starter? Tractor was running great until I parked it and removed the batteries. what am I missing?
You did a bunch of stuff that could cause a lot of problems, but none that I see that could have hurt the starter. So either all of this stuff happened and the starter coincidentally died at the same time, or you have too much resistance somewhere. Take a multimeter, and make some long test leads so you can have the meter in the cab with you when you're cranking, check the battery voltage when cranking, and then the voltage drop through all the connections, one at a time while cranking. Post back with the voltages if it's not obvious where the problem is.
What did I do that could cause problems? killing the batteries is not a good thing but this is a very basic system. I got the same result with 3 different power sources.. even jumping direct to the starter with 0 gauge booster cables, So I don't think that I'm losing voltage somewhere, Either the starter is shorting internal or I'm missing something else. The way I have it now is back to the way it was minus the ground strap from the batteries to the frame. I think I need to put a Amp clamp on the starter and see what it's drawing while it's trying to start.
Jumping direct to batteries with a bad ground will aid nothing, a bad ground is a bad ground, do voltage drops and ground verifications first, also look to the engine or auxiliary components that could be stalling the engine turning over. A engine freezing up, losing a bearing, a hydraulic pump dying could all do this, try barring the engine over by hand to see how tight it is, use a screwdriver/prybar thru the starter hole to the flywheel, should turn relatively easy.
Jumping direct to the starter with jumper cables without the machines batteries hooked up doesn't work. You are using 0 guage wire 16 or 20 feet long, the machines battery cable is 00 guage 5 feet long. The long cables have too much resistance. Take a pair of vise grips and clamp the ground cable to the frame. The machine will start. I have seen many people try starting a diesel engine with jumper cables and no battery, but I've never seen anyone succeed.
The engine turns over with a prybar on the ring gear or by turning the cooling fan. And we tried jumping direct to the starter not the batteries, Grounding directly on the starter, can't much more direct power then that. Does the chassis ground matter for starting purpose? we also tired bypassing the the wiring for the Injector Solenoid wiring it directly so we knew it was working. Mitch, The bolt that was used as the ground is gone, tonight I had 2 different ground points at the same time using the booster cables just as the chassis ground. I have another ground directly to the starter. I will try a shorter ground wire to the frame tomorrow problem is there's nothing really to ground to that is going to give me a good contact.
Which cable was removed? View attachment 580K_Batteries.pdf Some have another grounding strap on the other side of the frame where a ground is located. Maybe you are missing a ground connection.
There's nothing special about the chassis ground. If the neg cable goes directly to the starter then jumper cables should take care of the frame. It's possible that the starter is drawing too much current but you'd probably have burned something up by now if that was the case, and I trust the repair guy. Did the kids crank it until the batteries went dead? I think you're overthinking it, and the jumper cables are confusing you with a false sense of amperage. Any decent single car battery should start this thing fine at moderate temperature. Either an amp meter or a volt meter will tell you where to look closer, or even feeling the connections after it's cranked for a while might find it.
Everything was removed.. I have a picture of the original setup I could show you and you would see why. Maybe I'm missing something. I have new batteries, new terminals, new cables joining the batteries, new power wire to the starter and a new ground cable to the starter bolt which bolts into the block, the only thing I'm missing is the ground from the batteries to the frame which really has nothing to do with powering the starter and really should have no effect on power getting to the starter. My issue is the starter is barley turning the engine over, I fail to see why having the batteries grounded to the frame is part of the problem. I know it needs to be done but that is not going to make the starter spin any faster. I'm going to get a new starter. My thoughts are that 1 or the armatures in the winding is shorting out and fighting the starter making it draw more current the. The rebuild shop cannot test the starter under load, he told me it looked brand new and bench tested fine.
Whoa..... back track a bit.... go back and check every hyd. valve on the tractor... when you got that many little beezer's digging around,,, :beatsme who know's what they may have turned on,,, like a hyd. valve lock in.
I am not sure why you say the missing strap has nothing to do with the starter getting power. I would repair all the cable issues before I purchased a new starter.
I used the BH 3 times after they had left the key on.. work fine besides the fact I had to boost it every time. 4th time I decided it was time for new batteries
i have, you should see my 10 hp yanmar spin....
Well, yeah, you got me there I have honestly never worked on a diesel below about 40 hp, but I am looking for about a 10 hp diesel used, so I can convert my air compressor in my service truck, then I will only need chainsaw gas. Emerson, If you buy a starter before you hook the ground from your batteries back up, you are going to be wasting money. All of the current that goes to the starter down the positive cable from the machine's batteries and the booster battery has to come back through the ground. A good ground is absolutely just as important as a good positive connection. Don't worry about that bolt, if your battery box is securely bolted to the machine, just scrape the paint off a spot on it and clamp the end of the negative cable to it with vise grips. Or, clamp it to any other paint free spot it will reach that is connected to the frame securely. If it won't reach anything, go buy as short a 00 cable as will reach and clamp it to something. The reason the jumper cables aren't working is that the length of wire gives it too much resistance.
The starter is grounded directly to the batteries I've run a cable from the negative terminal directly to the bolt on the starter.. the only thing I'm missing is a ground strap from the batteries to the frame which has nothing to do with grounding the starter because it's already grounded directly to the batteries, can see if I was trying to the use the engine as a ground for the starter then I would need to ground the batteries to the frame. I cannot get a better ground or power supply then what I have right now. 2 new 925CCA batteries, new cables and it's still barely turning the engine over
Try a load test on those new batteries. Just because they are new doesn't guarantee them to be %100 perfect.
My guess is the bendex plunger disk surface is not making good contact
Please post the before and after pictures of the cables you put on. And look underneath/inside the frame behind the bolt that broke. Is there any other ground strap at all underneath?
You're right, I didn't understand that you had run a ground from the batteries to the starter, sorry. I thought you were trying to use jumper cables to ground the starter. As long as that wire is thick and short you are good to go. You did scrape the paint off the starter ear before you put the cable on it, right?
I ran into something VERY similar to this, but not on a backhoe... A yacht! I worked on an engine install on a brand new 80' private yacht where the boat had two 750 Hp Deere propulsion engines, and one 99 Hp Deere genset engine. The problem that we were having was proper ECU power. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't. Now I don't know how many of you have spent time in the engine room of a boat, especially in one of the more "modern" ones where they pack 5000000 lbs of crap in a 1 lb box, but let me tell you that it was NOT fun! I spent about 10 hours in that damn thing before I found out what the heck was going on. And it was a bad ground!!! The hull was an aluminum hull and the battery banks had 4/0 wire going to the starters. There was a 4/0 cable from the starter ground to the engine beds, and there was a 4/0 wire from the negative terminals to the stringers. If you took a multimeter, the resistsance was 0 ohms. But because there was not a cable from the battery to the starter, we were getting weak power. The kicker with my instance was that the ECU would get a voltage drop during cranking. So the ECU would never properly fire up and therefore, the engine wouldn't either. We ended up having to run 4/0 cables from the starting batteries right to the starter itself. Why? See, the starters in this case were for wet housings (even though the housings were not wet, that was just the option that was shipped on the engines), and there was a gasket between the starter and the housing. When the bolts were installed, thread locker was used. The gasket along with the thread locker was acting as an insulator of sorts. It didn't matter if they had these massive cables, it was all internal. It also didn't help that the engines were sitting on vibration isolators (rubber insulators). A 10 hour story short, it all turned out to be that we were not getting a good ground somewhere in the system even if EVERYTHING tells you that the ground is fine! There is however, a flip side to this. An engine will have one hell of a time starting if it has any parasitic loads on it. It would be indicative of a weak battery. When you have been able to start it, did the engine have a hard time coming up to idle? Also, did it seem like it was under any sort of load when you started it? When you went from low idle to a higher speed, did the engine seem to take a bit longer to come up to speed? If it did, then you likely have some sort of parasitic loss somewhere in the system, likely the hydraulic system or perhaps even the drivetrain.
UPDATE!.. Installed a new starter tonight, bleed the fuel lines ( because that was one of things I was looking into for the no start) and she fired up.. Backhoe is now back at my house where I can fix the broken battery box and install the wiring correctly.