Jinma 354 Charge trouble light always on - anyone else have charging issues?

[Tim Berframe]

My Jinma 354 has survived 6 Alberta winters outside with infrequent use. I have never charged the battery and although it is a bear to start in -25C it has always cranked long enough to fire. The charge light was intermittant for the first few years. I tensioned the belt and checked all connections etc. Now the light has been on continuously for 2 years and the battery still cranks.
Any suggestions how/why this could be? How to tell what the alternator is actually putting out? It must be something, no battery could sustain that long.

(As a side note, I have never got more than 3 years out of a car battery in this climate. I buy the most expensive batteries I can get and seem to always be upgrading on a warranty. I didn't expect much from a Chinese battery in a cheap tractor but it has turned out to be probably the strongest battery I've ever owned. I always grab it and throw it in the boat when going up the river on hunting trips so as to have a back up)

Tim

 

[Rich Waugh]

My guess is that your voltage regulator isn't making good contact in the fuse block. Those idiot lights will come on when the current flow is anything less than perfect and a weak connection can certainly do it. I clean all those blade terminals with contact cleaner and fine sandpaper and then use a little dab of dielectric contact grease to keep them good.

You can measure the output of your alternator with a cheap little voltmeter. It should read about 12.6 - 13.2 volts at idle and come up to around 14.4+ volts above about 1200-1500 rpm. If it doesn't then your regulator or alternator are suspect.

The biggest killer of batteries these days is the high under-hood temperatures of modern cars. Here in the tropics, two years is all you can hope for from any battery. When I lived in Phoenix, the local Sears store said they lost six or seven million bucks a year making good on warranties on their DieHard batteries. Of course, that's what I always bought - buy one, get the next three or four for free. I only wished they'd do the same for tires!

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Do you have an ammeter on your dashboard? That's the best check of whether the battery is charging. Although from your description it sounds like it obviously is. I'd also check the voltage regulator. On my 354 it's a separate module that plugs into the fusebox. About once a year it wiggles loose, the alternator light goes on, yet the ammeter shows the battery is charging. Pushing it back in place turns the light off. Some people hold it in place with a zip tie, I haven't got there yet.

 

[RonMar]

I also use a ziptie on my regulator after I nearly lost it. As suggested, pull it in and out of it's socket a few times to make sure it's contacts are clean. I would also cycle the main plug that connects fuse block to the rest of the wiring harness. Then of course check connections at alternator, Starter and at the battery, particularly the negative lead from battery to where it connects to the frame.

An Ammeter is OK for seeing if an alternator is putting out current, but the best check IMO is to put a volt meter on the battery when the engine is running. Ideally the alternator should push the battery voltage up to 14.5VDC +/- 0.5 VDC...