Ventrac 4500P wont start

[skzm]

I was in the field mowing with tough cut, battery light came on with audible warning beeping. I disengaged mower deck and battery light went off, it seemed to only come of when mow deck was engaged. I parked it for 30 mins or so thinking it was a problem with being pushed too hard. Upon starting back up there was no problems, engaged mow deck fine and a few mins later the Ventrac just dies; looses all power.

After fumbling quite a bit I get it on the trailer and back into a shop I can work on it but no luck with moving forward diagnosing the issue. Battery was down at 5.5, I pulled it and charged back up to 12.4, and no response. No lights on gauge or cluster come on when key is turned to run and TCM is only showing power light in the bottom corner.

There is this wire coming off the relay box near battery that seems to have been damaged.. could this be the culprit?

Trying to avoid bringing to the dealer as they have a 2 wk wait and I need to get back to work.

Thanks in advance

 

[Chris616]

Not the “Start” position, but when the key is turned to the “On” or "Run" position, what LEDs on the TCM light up other than the “POWER” LED? If there are none, then I suggest to check the condition of the fuse that supplies power to the TCM (“A” in the graphic below).



I took a photo of the battery area of my 4500P and the wire(s) that you’re asking about do not exist.



It’s not very clear, but your photos seem to show two wires with potentially charred ends (see green arrows below). Is that the case?

 

[skzm]

Thanks for the reply! No other lights come on TCM when turning key all the way, I just did continuity and resistance test on the to fuse (A) and it is good.
The charred wire is stacked on the stud behind the larger feed from the battery and seems to have run across this metal panel. Its very thin but you can see the black charring on the rubber insulator near the stud.

 

[Chris616]

(I edited my last post in case someone else is reading in the future. I had meant to differentiate turning the key between "Run" and "On", which are the same position, and "Start")

I have no idea what the charred wire was/is used for. Is that red electrical tape wrapped around the end nearest the terminal? If so it probably wasn’t OEM. If you’re not the original owner of this machine, maybe it’s something that a previous owner added for some reason.

There are a number of other fuses that you can start checking, all nicely detailed in the manual.

Are you confident that the battery is good at this point?

 

[skzm]

Its a red rubber insulator that seems to be melted/damaged. Im not the original owner so could very well be some kind of add on by previous owner.

Battery is good I tested that and even tried a different battery to make sure. When this issue happened the low battery light came on with an audible beep and after it died the battery was down to 5.5 or so. It easily charged back up but wont go any further. I read through manual and checked the few fuses it suggested in the troubleshoot section.

 

[Chris616]

Just to check the easy thing, have you turned the battery disconnect switch to "Off", waited ten seconds, then turned back to "On"? There are two different power supplies to the TCM. I would guess that if you're seeing the "POWER" LED lit that the TCM has "woken up", but it's worth doing just to be sure.

Edit: No, the words down at the bottom of page 74 state that if the TCM was in "Sleep" mode that the "POWER" LED would not be lit.

 

[Chris616]

I don't have any particular suggestions to try at this point. If I were trying to DIY a solution to this problem I would confirm a good connection of the battery negative cable, then use a multimeter to start methodically working through the wiring diagram to see where 12V is not getting to where it should be.

 

[MountainBuck]

I also have the 4500p and that mystery wire is not on my relay control module either. According to the wiring diagram that I have, there should be only one wire to this terminal. This single one big wire is the direct power feed to the entire tractor.

This relay control module that the one feed wire is bolted to exists to fuse and protect and distribute power to the remaining tractor harness from the hundreds of amps of power that the battery can provide in the event of a direct electrical short.

I'm very concerned that what has happened here is someone has added an unfused power tap from this battery connection terminal. Then while you were mowing, something in the front harness shorted to ground, allowing hundreds of amps to fry this wire into oblivion. An unfused direct short to the battery is extremely dangerous.

What is most concerning now is the no power situation to your front harness. This makes be think that the wire that is originally supposed to feed the front harness from the factory was damaged or cut or chewed through and the previous owner bypassed the damaged wire with this new wire that he ran from this unfused terminal location to feed the front harness. If this is what has happened, it is a very reckless and dangerous thing to do.

So what to do? I would take it to the dealer. If you tried to replace this wire, you would be risking the same situation to occur with potentially a worse outcome. Batteries exploding on direct short are rare, but they can and do happen. Also, that foreign wire could have damaged other wires as it became a red hot molten pile of liquid metal. The overload could have also burned up other components if the short was down line from that component.

I suppose if it were me, I would try and trace down where the melted wire ran to and maybe calculate current draw and properly inline fuse and size a replacement wire, but even then I would have strong hesitation. There could very well be other severe damage from the overload and other components may need to be replaced.

Maybe contact the original owner and ask about this mystery wire? That may give you more insight as well.

 

[skzm]

I also have the 4500p and that mystery wire is not on my relay control module either. According to the wiring diagram that I have, there should be only one wire to this terminal. This single one big wire is the direct power feed to the entire tractor.

This relay control module that the one feed wire is bolted to exists to fuse and protect and distribute power to the remaining tractor harness from the hundreds of amps of power that the battery can provide in the event of a direct electrical short.

I'm very concerned that what has happened here is someone has added an unfused power tap from this battery connection terminal. Then while you were mowing, something in the front harness shorted to ground, allowing hundreds of amps to fry this wire into oblivion. An unfused direct short to the battery is extremely dangerous.

What is most concerning now is the no power situation to your front harness. This makes be think that the wire that is originally supposed to feed the front harness from the factory was damaged or cut or chewed through and the previous owner bypassed the damaged wire with this new wire that he ran from this unfused terminal location to feed the front harness. If this is what has happened, it is a very reckless and dangerous thing to do.

So what to do? I would take it to the dealer. If you tried to replace this wire, you would be risking the same situation to occur with potentially a worse outcome. Batteries exploding on direct short are rare, but they can and do happen. Also, that foreign wire could have damaged other wires as it became a red hot molten pile of liquid metal. The overload could have also burned up other components if the short was down line from that component.

I suppose if it were me, I would try and trace down where the melted wire ran to and maybe calculate current draw and properly inline fuse and size a replacement wire, but even then I would have strong hesitation. There could very well be other severe damage from the overload and other components may need to be replaced.

Maybe contact the original owner and ask about this mystery wire? That may give you more insight as well.

this is super helpful thanks! I suspected something was up with that wire. Ill make an appointment with the dealer to get it in for a service.

 

[Chris616]

I suspected something was up with that wire.

You mentioned earlier that the mystery wire was "very thin". Is that because it was burned up so that little is left? If the wire really was thin to begin with it seems unlikely that a previous owner would have used it as a bypass around a damaged OEM main feed from the battery. I had thought that it might have been used for a battery maintainer, although that would have only worked if the disconnect switch wasn't used.