Jump started, now broken.

[inglesidenorth]

John Deere Model 50. Positive Ground. While drilling beans, tractor stalled and did not have juice to restart. Retightened all connections, and jump started with a pickup. Started right up and went another round. Stalled and jumped it again. Start up and went another round. Stalled and didn't want to jump start. Left it connected to the running pickup and went to get water (for me!).

Came back and found started spinning but not engaged. Gave up and drilled the rest of the field with another tractor. Took the battery out and charged with a battery charger. When I put the battery back under the seat, and connected both poles, the starter starts to spin (but not engaged) and the ignition switch is off, and obviously I'm not stepping on the starter.

By leaving the truck connected for say 15 minutes, could I have somehow swapped the polarity of the starter?

 

[beenthere]

:welcome: to the forum.

Sounds plausible.
Did you know the polarity of the truck was different than the Deere?

Curious, why the stalling happened. Was the battery not charging while the Deere was running and just draining the battery to keep running?

 

[inglesidenorth]

Ah sorry. Each time it stalled, it was very low on electrical power. Motor would roll over once when I trying to start conventionally, which is why I jumped it. So yes, I have either a battery or a generator problem as the initial issue. However, I was more curious as to ideas on the starter running when I connect the battery.

I was aware they were different "polarities", but I aware hear +to +, and - to - and you're fine, so that's what I did and it jump started fine, so I didn't think anything of it.

 

[Harry in Ky]

From what I remember from my dad's old Model B the starter is engaged mechanically by the action of the starter pedal, so if you're not stepping on it, it would not be engaged. The pedal action also closes the contacts to start the spinning. In this case I suspect a combination of a tired starter, and repeated tries with a weak battery has caused the contacts to stick. Either way, you pull the starter.

 

[Oldtractorfixer]

Crossed polarity will not cause this. Low voltage can cause solinoid contacts to burn and stick. I suspect you tried it before you went to the house and the solinoid stuck then but didn't have enough voltage to turn the starter motor. Seems like it should have run more than one round on a charged battery and no charging system. Maybe some issues with the solinoid previous?

 

[greg_g]

I'm inclined to believe the starter solenoid has an internal short. The posts are delicate, and don't age well in the heat. I've damaged one simply by being too rough with the jumper cable. You can remove/incect/clean, it might just be carbonized or metal fragments. But it's likely to happen again. You may end up installing a new solenoid.

//greg//

 

[buickanddeere]

Old tractor fixer has the situation explained. Trying to force a broken
a broken machine to operate just made for more work and expense. The charging system needed to be repaired. It would not be the 1st time a completely dead battery was reverse charged on a pos ground machine. Won't make it run or run in reverse.

 

[beenthere]

Don't think there is a solenoid on this starter, and believe it is a mechanical linkage for contact that energizes the starter motor and the bendix (or similar) kicks the gear onto the flywheel ring. The mechanical contact is linked to a foot pedal as HarryinKY remembers (as do I). Step on pedal #51, that rocks lever #48, that in turn presses button on either #20A or 20B to make contact.

Maybe something in the starter motor is haywire, or a bendix spring broken ??

Here is a breakdown of the parts.

 

[Tx Jim]

beenthere
You're exactly correct in that there is no solenoid for contacts to stick, all mechanical linkage.

 

[inglesidenorth]

ALL GOOD!

The starter was mechanically stuck in the "start" position. I had not noticed that initially. There was still a little play, so I thought it was fine, but after reading the posts, I decided to removed part 20A/B and the button popped back out into the normal position. This is one of the few non-original parts on this tractor. The spring had gotten caught up and did not return the button to the normal position. I screwed it back in, reconnected the battery, and it started right up.

Thanks for all the help. I guess the start button got stuck the last time I tried to start it before leaving the tractor connected to the truck, and the battery was SO DEAD, that the starter would not run.

I suppose my big confusion was that I did not think the starter would turn over with the ignition switch in the Off position. Oops!