Post by RaisedByWolves on Apr 24, 2012 16:59:23 GMT -5
Grounding issues can be one of the worst electrical gremlins you can run across, but also one of the easiest to avoid if you know what to do.
Most of the older JD tractors have what is know as a "Floating ground" electrical system. This means that the ground for various systems on the tractor is picked up not directly from the battery, but through the various pieces of tin making up the tractors bodywork.
Each of these pieces of bodywork gets it connection to ground through different avenues, usually the bolts holding the panels to the frame or to each other. And since were dealing with older tractors here, many of these bolt/thread/threaded nut connections has become rusty and can cause bad or intermittent connections.
Heres how you can easily and permanently rid your tractor of nearly 90% of its electrical gremlins.
First you will need to find your tractors ground wire tab. It is usually attached to the right side panel under the battery tray and looks like this.
Now that one is a nice clean one, shown as an example of what this connector should look like. You can see that this one that I am working on is not only lose, but also rusty enough to cause problems even if the bolt were tight.
All you need to do is strip about 1" of insulation off of these three wires and solder them to one heavier gauge wire. I took this pic after putting the heat shrink tubing on, but you get the idea.
And I then wire tied it to some other wires to keep it out of the drive shaft as it hangs directly above it.
I then routed the new ground wire that I soldered on to the engine block where the main ground wire from the battery goes. I simply added a ring terminal to the end and bolted it down.
Now I have a properly grounded electrical system that I will have much less trouble with.
Most of the older JD tractors have what is know as a "Floating ground" electrical system. This means that the ground for various systems on the tractor is picked up not directly from the battery, but through the various pieces of tin making up the tractors bodywork.
Each of these pieces of bodywork gets it connection to ground through different avenues, usually the bolts holding the panels to the frame or to each other. And since were dealing with older tractors here, many of these bolt/thread/threaded nut connections has become rusty and can cause bad or intermittent connections.
Heres how you can easily and permanently rid your tractor of nearly 90% of its electrical gremlins.
First you will need to find your tractors ground wire tab. It is usually attached to the right side panel under the battery tray and looks like this.
Now that one is a nice clean one, shown as an example of what this connector should look like. You can see that this one that I am working on is not only lose, but also rusty enough to cause problems even if the bolt were tight.
All you need to do is strip about 1" of insulation off of these three wires and solder them to one heavier gauge wire. I took this pic after putting the heat shrink tubing on, but you get the idea.
And I then wire tied it to some other wires to keep it out of the drive shaft as it hangs directly above it.
I then routed the new ground wire that I soldered on to the engine block where the main ground wire from the battery goes. I simply added a ring terminal to the end and bolted it down.
Now I have a properly grounded electrical system that I will have much less trouble with.
