BX2200 Shutdown

[cpicton1]

Bought my BX2200 03/02/2002. It now has 102 hours on the meter. Yesterday, 12/26/02, I go to the shop and start my baby up. Starts just fine and purring along so I walk outside to let it warmup a bit. After about one minute I hear it shutdown. I look at the dash lights and they are flickering. So I shut off the ignition switch and when I turn it back on I have no dash lights at all. I checked the battery, fuses and make sure the connectors under the dash are tight, still no lights. I call my dealer and tell him the problem, he says he'll have a service person to my place in a couple hours. I go back to the tractor and look some more. When I pull the cover off the positive wire on the starter I see that a small red wire is just laying inside the boot. It has the connector on the end that is suppose to be bolted on with the hot wire. I touch it to the starter bolt and the dash lights magically come on. I call the dealer back and tell him not to send the service person and what I had found. He said it would have had to come from the assembly plant that way. He said they don't touch the starter when they are setting them up in his shop. He and I both couldn't believe that this wire has just been laying inside the cover just touching the starter post all this time. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Luckily this thing doesn't fly. I would hate to have been airborne when the electric fuel pump shut down. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[Charliebrn]

Could the nut have vibrated loose and/or off? I find it hard to believe that you put that many hours on it with it loose like that. I used to help set up new BX's out of the crates...they always had the hot wire disconnected at the battery....

 

[cpicton1]

Charliebrn,

The nut was tight on the starter. I had to use a socket & ratchet to break it loose so I could put the small red wire on the stud. I did remove the ground wire from the battery before working with the starter. Somehow they missed putting the small red wire on the starter stud when they put the battery wire on it. As I said before, I wouldn't have believed it myself if I wasn't the one who found it. Put it in the books as a <font color=blue> Believe It Or Not</font color=blue> story. I'm telling it exactly as it happened. It would be my guess that the small wire was touching the stud and there was enough tension where the wires passed through the rubber boot that it took that long before it pulled back enough that it lost contact. Anyway, I used it all afternoon today and didn't have any problems at all. I love my little BX and they really are little work horses for no bigger than they are. No complaints. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[hwp]

I have run into similar problems, both on cars and on my F2400. The older Benzs used a seperate wire from the positive battery terminal to the electronics module with its own stud on the battery terminal connector. Sometimes that wire would become loose, either from the terminal connector or the connector end on the wire would break and then there would be no power to the electronics module, and of course the vehicle wouldn't run. The most annoying thing was that the disconnect would happen when you were driving, so you would have to pull over and stop with no power steering or brakes. Often if you let the vehicle sit for a few minutes, it would then start. The first time I experienced this it took a long time to fine the problem.

My F2400 had years of experience and thousands of hours on it before I got it. There were numerous signs of back yard mechanics hacking away at various things, particularly the electrical wiring. One problem I ran into fairly early on was that occaisionally the tractor wouldn't start. I found that if I jiggled the wires a bit it would start. Eventually I realized that the connection to the fusible link on the main power supply line had been hacked. This is the same line that you had the problem with on your BX 2200. I tried putting a new female end on the supply side of the T connector for the fusible link but was never able to get reliable contact. I have now removed the T connector and put the female spade leads directly on ot the fusible link terminals. The problem seems to be solved. A disconnected fusible link can cause two kinds of problems. First the tractor won't start if the connection is broken. Second, if the engine is running and the connection breaks, the only way to stop it is with the manual shut off. So if you have electrical problems, check the supply to the fusible link first.