Anyone know what the A series CAT tire machine hour meter is tied into for it to operate and collect hours? Is it just tied to the ignition circuit being charged, as in leaving the key on, or is it tied to a sensor on the engine? If I remember correctly, the hr. meter has three wires to it.
Cannot say for sure but it should just be on the ignition circuit, key on its running. The three wires should be ground, ignition and lights
thanks, engine was swapped to a cummins and I'm trying to tie up loose ends. It still reads hours, but is not collecting them when ignition is on, so it must be a circuit that feeds off something else like a fuel solenoid switch or something.
There's no backlight. One wire is ground, one is battery power to keep the meter live and readable at all times even with key off, the other is the wire for counting the hours. Could be tired into fuel shutoff solenoid or sometimes oil pressure sending units are used depending on the type. Kind of depends on how the machine is wired.
I've seen plenty that were tied to the alternator output and now days they can be run from the computer itself.
Most of the older cat machines i've worked on, the hour meter ran off of the "R" terminal of the alternator.
What size Cat skid loader is it? Why was the engine switched to a Cummins? Sounds pretty cool.
Like other have said Model and S/N will go a long way to get a definite answer, many here have access to Cat SIS.
Might be helpful for someone in the future, but cb75 ended up being correct - alternator does advance the clock. Took me a while to figure it out, though I thought it was the oil pressure sending unit wiring harness, but it wasn't. Connector had three wires, two yellow and one green. The green makes its way back to the meter with 12 volts to advance it.