My ‘89 410C has been pretty good since I got it last year. The batteries have always shown above 12.5V (with a load tester) but the starter has turned the engine over more and more slowly and now when it just clicks. In the past I have often had to do the nuetral-forward-nuetral-reverse thing and turn the steering wheel to get the starter to engage. The last 2 times it was running I found that it was very difficult to initially get the steering wheel turning and then it kind of “free’d up” and then the steering wheel would turn by itself until the wheels steered all the way to the locks. As a test, I jumped the battery directly to the starter and it turned the engine over faster than I’ve ever heard it before but also, the front wheels steered until they hit the locks. Could these 2 issues be related? Any ideas about what I should start looking at?
I'm not sure what's going on with your steering so I'll ignore that for now. Actually, I'm not sure what's going on with any of this, but the starting is easier to deal with. Does this charge while running? The battery light comes on when you turn the key and goes off when you start it? When you jumped the battery to the starter, where exactly did you jump?
I believe it does charge while running. I jumped directly from terminals as while they were connected to the posts. positive to the pos on the starter and negative to the body of the starter, I then used a separate wire to jump the starter-pos to the solenoid. Thank you.
The older Deere backhoes did not have a solenoid operated dump valve on the hyd. pump so turning the steering wheel while cranking unloaded the pump and made it easier to turn over. The newer ones had that, they would send battery voltage to the solenoid valve while cranking, I think the C series should have one so it may not be working.
yes, the hydraulic pump should have an unloader solenoid. Don't apply 12V to check it, it can burn out. Check that it's getting voltage during cranking, and check the ohms if you want. Sounds like you used jumper cables to run parallel to the positive battery cable and ground cable? I'd say one of the cables or connections has too much resistance if the jumper cables helped crank faster. Remove the jumper cables and crank it for ten seconds, I bet you can feel warmth at the bad connection. Or do a cranking voltage drop test.
Thank you so much! I will check this out this weekend..
Thank you so much! I will check this out this weekend.. checking for warmth,, brilliant! thanks again