All my other projects are on hold for one reason or another and the remnants of Ida are passing through so rain and wind pretty much make outdoor stuff a pain.
Got a little bored (ALWAYS a dangerous and usually an expensive thing for me) so decided to investigate why the Shibaura engine was being such a miserable PITA to start.
First thought was dead glow plugs, so I pulled them out and hooked them to my bench power supply. After a few seconds they started glowing red hot just like they should.
Second thought was the glow plug timer that's built into the electronics on the JD chassis wasn't giving them enough current (my power supply indicated about 3 amps at 12vdc) so I thought "OK, I'll hook them direct to the battery via a momentary switch and an indicator light and run them manually".
Per my usual practice, I buffed up all the connections before reassembling and wired them back up to the onboard timer and thought "Those connections were pretty grungy, I should probably try it again to see if cleaning them helped."
Two glow cycles later, she cranked right up!
I'm going to wire an indicator into the circuit as right now I'm listening for the relay to drop out and being old and more than a little hard of hearing, that's not very efficient. The original indicator was built into the JD dash panel which was trashed beyond repair.
Good news is that it's an easy (and cheap) fix. Bad news is, now I'm out of things to do again...
Got a little bored (ALWAYS a dangerous and usually an expensive thing for me) so decided to investigate why the Shibaura engine was being such a miserable PITA to start.
First thought was dead glow plugs, so I pulled them out and hooked them to my bench power supply. After a few seconds they started glowing red hot just like they should.
Second thought was the glow plug timer that's built into the electronics on the JD chassis wasn't giving them enough current (my power supply indicated about 3 amps at 12vdc) so I thought "OK, I'll hook them direct to the battery via a momentary switch and an indicator light and run them manually".
Per my usual practice, I buffed up all the connections before reassembling and wired them back up to the onboard timer and thought "Those connections were pretty grungy, I should probably try it again to see if cleaning them helped."
Two glow cycles later, she cranked right up!
I'm going to wire an indicator into the circuit as right now I'm listening for the relay to drop out and being old and more than a little hard of hearing, that's not very efficient. The original indicator was built into the JD dash panel which was trashed beyond repair.
Good news is that it's an easy (and cheap) fix. Bad news is, now I'm out of things to do again...