L 3901 weird display, won't start

[Buffalo]

My 2015 L 3901 is acting weird. When I turn the key to start it, the dash lights flicker rapidly and the tractor makes a loud and rapid clicking sound. The tractor does not turn over. It was fine when I parked it. The battery is good, and the cables are sound. No fuses are blown. I asked my dealer and showed them a short video, but they said they had not seen anything like this before ...

Is it the starter motor ? I do have a short video, but it won't attach ...

 

[85Hokie]

My 2015 L 3901 is acting weird. When I turn the key to start it, the dash lights flicker rapidly and the tractor makes a loud and rapid clicking sound. The tractor does not turn over. It was fine when I parked it. The battery is good, and the cables are sound. No fuses are blown. I asked my dealer and showed them a short video, but they said they had not seen anything like this before ...

Is it the starter motor ? I do have a short video, but it won't attach ...

Upload to a youtube account and then SEND us the link!

 

[Buffalo]

Upload to a youtube account and then SEND us the link!

No idea how to do that so I put it on one of my own servers. Go to
https://si.okiefrog.org/ and right-click on "Right Click to download Kubota movie"

 

[lugbolt]

low voltage.

check the battery voltage with a digital voltmeter. Leave the meter on the batery and then have someone try to turn the engine over. Voltage should not drop below about 10v.

open (no load) voltage should be 12.5-12.9 for a good battery.

I know you said it was good but define good. What are the voltages?

I also know you said the cables were fine. After you deem the battery good, you can then test the integrity of the cables using a voltage drop test, do it on both the positive side and negative side.

don't keep trying to crank it much with a low voltage issue. If you do there is chance the the ecu can be hurt.

 

[Buffalo]

Hmmm. I forgot to comment that the headlights are bright, and I put a battery charger on and cranked it also. Still no joy, but the dash lights were quite bright. I'll measure the voltages tomorrow. Thanks for the comments, and the warnings. I'll post what I find out. If anyone downloads the video, I would appreciate your reaction.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I watched the video:
Bad battery connection or connections and or a damaged battery.
Have it load tested.
Remove both ends of both cables and check and clean them.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

disconnect battery, with a known good battery ,use jumper cables TO the starter and nearby ground.
see if starter turns(yes there will be some sparks when pressing -ve cable to battery ).

 

[Outnumbered]

I have had the same symptoms on mine and it was a poor battery connection. Take the connections loose, clean them and reconnect. Again, as others have stated, check the voltage of the battery as I have had the same when my original battery was going bad too.

 

[RBsingl]

An easy way to find a connection issue is to measure voltage across the suspected point under load (while attempting to engage starter). The resistance of the bad connection will cause a fairly large voltage to be read while a good connection will have almost no voltage drop across it.

For example, if you suspect the battery terminal to connector then put one volt meter lead on the battery post and the other on the connector and have someone try to start and watch for a large reading which indicates a fault between the connector and battery post. All cables and connections can easily be tested this way to zero in on the one at fault.

Trying to read resistance with these using a typical VOM/DMM won't work because the amount of resistance needed to create a problem is far less than what these meters are designed to read. 0.1 (1/10) of an ohm creates a 10 volt drop under a 100 amp load but no standard meter will accurately measure a resistance this low. I have a Simpson adapter for my classic 260 series VOM that allows measurement down to 1 milliohm which can directly diagnose these sorts of connections issues. It uses the equivalent of a 4 wire setup so that it is measuring voltage drop across the connection and presents the result in resistance on a choice of four selectable ranges from .1 to 1 ohm full scale.

Rodger

 

[imarobot]

An Simpson analog meter, haven't seen one of them in years!!!

 

[RBsingl]

An Simpson analog meter, haven't seen one of them in years!!!

I have Tektronix and HP digital meters on the bench but I also keep a couple of versions of Simpson analog meters around because I do a lot of restoration of vintage amateur radio gear. When doing alignment, a true analog meter indication is much better than the bar type simulated analog response provide by a DMM. Without an analog meter, I would rely upon a Tektronix scope for those adjustments requiring real time response.

I have a rolltop case Simpson 260 that gets used with several 260 series accessories like the milliohmeter. The Simpson 269 shown in the photo with the adapter is a less common Simpson meter and its high sensitivity 16 microamp taut band meter movement gives it 100K ohms per volt sensitivity for DC measurements providing less loading than a DMM or VTVM once you get above the 8 volt range.

Rodger

 

[Hugo Habicht]

For problems like the one in this thread or finding very fast intermittent contacts I find really cheap analogue meters without any magnetic damping ideal.