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Recently my Agricat tractor has had trouble starting. I could tap on the starter with the key in the start position and it would crank over. Now it will not crank at all. When I jumper the solenoid from the battery to the switch terminal on the solenoid it just sparks a little and still will not turn over. I suspect the solenoid is shot but looking for expert advice. The battery has a solar panel charger on it so I feel like it is completely charged. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
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An old farmer said when troubleshooting electrical issues the 3 most important things are to:
Check your grounds
Check your grounds
Check your grounds
I think he sold real estate on the side. 😉
So, check all connections, meaning take them apart and clean them. If all good there, next step is to check the battery.
Cheap and easy way is to remove the solar charger and check voltage, it better be above 12, closer to 13 is better.
Now with the voltmeter still connected, hit the starter and watch the voltage. If it drops below 10 you have a battery problem. Try jumping with another vehicle.
If battery voltage is good, check again with the voltmeter connected at the starter. If OK, time to remove the starter and have a look inside. If voltage drops off at starter but is OK at the battery, you have a cable/connection problem.
Let us know what you find.
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Here is what I did. I took off the starter solenoid, took it apart and flipped around the large terminal screws and contact plate washer inside to essentially refurbish the solenoid. I then reinstalled the solenoid, cleaned all of the terminals, nuts, washers, and cable ends. Now all connections are clean and reinstalled. I hooked up my battery charger and dialed it to “boost” to try and start it. It did turn over a 1/4 revolution so that tell me what I did worked. It looks like the battery does need to be replaced.
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