Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella

Posted by williamf on April 21, 2006 at 09:55:36 from (66.82.9.47):

I went down to the shed to start up the old Ford 3500D TLB the other week. Click-click-click-click.
Poked around, the positive battery terminal was hot. Took both terminals loose, cleaned, scraped. Fired right up. Next week, had to go load lime in the spreader for the hunt guys. Click-click, etc. Cleaning no help. Attached little 10 amp. charger; 10 minutes later, started, a little slow to turn over. Stalled once while loading - click-click. Jumper cables, didn't let it stall again.
Get home, put on charger. 20 minutes later charger says battery full. Take charger off, click-click.
Ok, I know this one. Bad battery cables. I had put new ends on last year, but that's a cheap, temporary solution. So I pull them off (requires taking both fuel filters off to get to the starter, there's another episode of boneheadedness here, later). Take to town, Interstate makes me a new set. Put them on. Click-click. Charger says battery full.
Battery ( 2-year old Interstate, weighs about 80lbs.) must be bad. Take it off tractor (over loader arm, standing on front tire, arthritis getting much worse fast) and carry to Interstate store. They find low charge, nothing really wrong, charge it overnight, check again, good charge nothing wrong. Tell me something must be wrong with my charger. Well, that explains why I keep having trouble with the dump trailer, eh, dummy? Throw charger away, buy much better one.
Put battey back in, spins it faster than it has in weeks.
But why do I need to use the charger at all? And why isn't the idiot light telling me it isn't charging? Pull instrument cluster from dash. Mice have pulled light bulb out and buried it in their nest. Correct that situation, put mothballs on list. Start tractor, idiot light near blinding.
So, is it the voltage regulator (caused similar problem six or eight years ago, replaced it then, essence of troubleshooting -remember the last time) or the generator (ten or so years old, bearings went bad on the old one, the new one's always been real noisey)?
Well, the generator's marginally easier to get to, I'll take it off and have it checked. First, unplug the wires....no, wait. Maybe first plug the wire back in, you moronic, blind, imbecilic, peabrained twit.
But I shouldn't be hard on myself. I got a new battery charger, which I needed, and new battery cables, which I needed, new fuel filters, which I thought I had been putting off, but which I now remember getting around to last year when I bought the new starter, which is why when I went to the shelf to get the new fuel filters I found spare oil filters in the Carquest bag. (The other episode of boneheadedness I mentioned, and an extra dash to town at 5PM.) In all, a valuable learning experience which I'll remember almost up to the next time.

Replies:

• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella Don c 08:56:13 04/22/06 (0)
• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella TGIN 03:00:15 04/22/06 (0)
• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella bwick 10:11:28 04/21/06 (0)
• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella Mike (WA) 10:10:35 04/21/06 (0)
• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella Jim.UT 10:06:23 04/21/06 (0)
• Re: Troubleshooting myself in the foot - a novella ChasK 10:04:09 04/21/06 (0)

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