Wheel Horse

[MadTripper]

A friend was cleaning out his barn and pulled out a 1967 Wheel Horse Lawn Ranger. *He didn't have a use for it and asked if I wanted it so of course, I said yes! *

So we cleaned the carb and verified spark. *The battery was dead so we pull started it. *After a few pulls, it fired up. *

Now I already have a zero turn that I love however my wife doesn't want to use it. *She always said that if we had a "normal" lawn mower, she would use that. *So, now she has one! *Well, we are going to check the deck bearing because they sounded a bit rough and possibly renew its paint. *Overall, it is in pretty impressive shape and I had fun tooling around on it in the parking lot.

I'll try to snap some photos soon and post them.

Tripper

[MadTripper]

Today we managed to completely strip the deck down. I came up with a parts list since we had it down that far and our local shop is going to try and order them in. I have to say I'm very impressed with the shape this thing is in and the construction overall. The previous owners must have been pretty good about keeping it maintained. We are going to replace all of the bearings in the deck and a few other items like gears and the direct drive shaft. The keyslots on the shaft are way out of specs and due to the bearings being shot, the shaft has taken a bit of a beating.

My friend sanded most of the deck so once we finish cleaning it, we'll prime and paint it. I'm thinking I may add this project to my web page and keep it up to date with posts and pictures.

Tripper

[Mac_Muz]

I am not sure just waht charging system this has, but it isn't a good idea to try using that dead battery.

Doing so will force the charging to system to attempt to charge and the battery will allow it, but since the battery is dead it won't charge and will over heat the system..

A real good idea is to get a battery, and a shumaker 1.25 amp auto charger, and leave it plugged in all the time you don't run the tractor.. These chargers are about 17 dollars, I have 2..

I think the tractor has a magneto ignition and the charger is based on that. This will kill all the light bulbs too, if there is no battery in line, to act as a ballast.

It sounds like you got a real good deal, can't beat free, and a sound rig at that... Paerts should be fairly common for years to come as well, and you probably have a better quality machine than you can buy today for any price.

[MadTripper]

I haven't found a lot of info on the charging system however it appears to be 12v so I plan on just getting a new batter for it. I'll keep your advice handy and see where we end up. I have a heavy duty charger/starter already so worse case, I can use that. It's really for my wife to use so it won't get as much use as my zero turn. We also have an 801 PowerMaster with a 6 ft. finishing mower. It is actually my brother in laws but we have adjoining property and store it in my pole barn so he lets me use it as needed.

So, we should have plenty of mowing devices around but I'm really looking forward to the wheel horse. We did manufacture the deck drive shaft and replaced the shaft bearings. I'm getting the primer tomorrow so we can get started on the paint.

[Mac_Muz]

Nooooooooo Don't use more than a 1.25 AMP rated charger! You need a new battery, and you need to maintain it with a auto charger...

[MadTripper]

I guess I'm a bit confused. I honestly don't know what the current output of the charger is but there are quite a few settings. I will investigate however what would the issue be if I used more than 1.25A?

Tripper

[Mac_Muz]

With a new battery you want to maintain the battery at no more than 1.25A.

A 17 dollar Shumaker autofloat charger does this well, and will come on and off as the battery demands.. This is a walley world item, so easy to get.

A charger with a higher rate isn't likely to be an auto charger, and then you would only want to use it if you didn't maintian the battery, which is a sin.

This type of battery looses apx 10% of the charge each day, and with that begins to sulfate to death, which is permanent damage.

On the battery case somewhere is a rate in "Ah" which means Amp Hours.

I have no idea what the battery is in "Ah".

A guess is between 10 Ah and 30 Ah, probably closer to 16 Ah. So you would almost never want to hit it with the very same rate it is, for very long.

It will tend to boil the acid water out for starters, over heating the battery and bending the internal plates.

There just is no good reason to not run a auto maintaince charger as I see things..

A brand new battery can die of old age and be no better than a boat anchor in as little time as 90 days. It will sulfate to death.

If you ran the engine everyday which isn't likey for as long as it takes to replace the use of starting, and then some, you would be maintaining the battery with it's own charging system, which is also varriable.

The auto on auto off feature is very desirable.

Any 12 volt set up works like this..

You start the engine using apx 360 AMPS that the starter draws, and the battery can deal with the load for a few seconds at a time, and have reserve to run the ignition.

Once the engine starts the magneto/ generator/ alternator begins to seek engine rpm to start charging.

Depending on the set up charging may not happen at low rpms.

I don't know what the set up you have is.

Most motorcycles as an example don't charge untill the engine is at 2,800 rpm and or more. This is because most bikes have the alt ratio as 1:1 being that the rotor is mounted on the crank shaft.

A car on the iother hand with a belt driven alternator is set up with a small pully on the alt and a big pully on the crankshaft. So at engine idle of 800 to 1,000 rpm the alt is at apx 3 times speed.

Most 12 volt alts need to spin at 3,000 rpm, to begin charging, so on cars they do instantly.

Since I don't know what the system is in this case I can't tell you what rpm you need to put back what the starter took..

The typical electric starter in good shape on a engine in good shape draws 350ish amps...

Amp Hours are the time you can run current in amps..

A 20 AH battery should run a device 20 hours if the device is rated at 1 amp draw.


A 20 AH battery should run a device 1 hour if the device is rated 20 amps.

These are with no charging. So after 1 hour at 20 Amps or 20 hours at 1 amp, you would need to re-charge the battery.

If you didn't bother to do that right away the sulfation BEGINS, and if you allowed the battery some time, like a month, it might be you could never charge that battery again...

Lets say you find the battery to weak to start the engine one day, and lets say this charger you have can put out 50 amps to assit with starting a car..

That 50 amps is less than the car system is likely, so the car can handle the 50 amps out put and not fry the regulator, and the diodes in the alt... You can do this and be all set..

Lets say this is a bike with a 16 AH battery, and that at 5,000 engine rpm the bike makes 20 amps max... The charging system here can only handle 20 amp..

So you add a car to the bike sytem, or a 50 amp charger and you will fry the bike's charging system more often than not.

The same thing goes for the tractor.

Lets say you don't maintain thee battery, and you end up needing a car to jump from.

This is how you do it.. You install the car battery to the tractor, and with the tractor OFF, as in the keys are in your pocket, you start and run the car for about 10 minutes.

During that 10 minutes the tractor battery is taking a charge of near to 50 AMPS +.. The battery can do this for this time, but not mouch more, so long as the battery is any good in the first place.

After tis time you SHUT the CAR OFF. You may leave the battery cables from the car to the tractor in line as a back up source for current, but the car must be off!

The tractor can then be started safely as it will only make the current it should have in amps. No over load can happen because there is nothing to cause any over load.

Any battery must be able to do 2 things... Hold a load as in store a charge, and on demand deliver that load.

A battery that has suffered sulfation means it's abilities to store a charge is weakened.

A weakened battery can not deliver a full load oof current.

A new and good battery rated at 12 volts should read on a digital meter 12.6 dcv.

When under a hard load like cranking a engine with the ignition disabled to test this same battery should read No LOWER than 10.5 dcv for 10 seconds on a tractor and or motor bike, and 30 seconds on a car.


At alt charging speed to test the charging system most systems should produce no less than 13.5 dcv. and optimum no more than 14.6 dcv.

With a good system you could expect to see 14.6 dcv right at the first alt rpm to charge, and then as the time passes in use, see the charge rate drop to 13.5 dcv because you have put back what you took out.

This makin' any sence to you?

[MadTripper]

Yep, that sums it up pretty well. So, I had planned on a new battery which will take care of the immediate issue. I will look at investing in a charger like you mentioned as well. You bring up some other thoughts that I will pose to you.

On my current lawnmower, do you suggest I keep a charger on it as well? Especially during the winter months?

On the Wheel Horse, I will be using a snow blower attachment however given our previous few years of snow, I'm not sure how much use it will get. So, is it better to unhook the battery in off months or should it also remain on a charger?

Thanks again.

Tripper

[Mac_Muz]

Get 2 Shumaker auto chargers and keep them on the batteries any time you are not using the tools... it won't amtter whether or not the cables are disconnected so long as the keys are off.

This will insure you get the max life from both batteries..

Unless you happen to have less money than I do, which I doubt, 17 dollars each should not break the bank, and the few cents a day won't run up the electric bill either.

I wrote the first post on this link, and you might like to read it.
http://forum.motorcycle-usa.com/default.aspx?f=18&m=331125

[MadTripper]

Thanks again for all the advice. *This makes a ton of sense not only for the Wheel Horse but for lots of other items. *I'll check into getting one of those chargers, perhaps two if I can swing it.

Tripper

P.S. Great post on that other site as well.

[Mac_Muz]

If you could bring a battery to some place warmer than freezing +32'F better yet a steady 55'F to 65'F and run the charger for several days time, then put it back on the snow blower the rest of the time it would do.

The colder battery would like more time.

At walley world there are digital multi meters, and for the 17 bucks they cost work well. If you decide to buy one read the info sheet it comes with. At first you would want only the vdc scales.

With that you can check 1.5 volt flashlite batterys, 9 volt, and other things that run on dc current.. You can test what ever vehicals and tools as well.

That tool will take learning for other things related and some of these I don't know well and or use myself much. I don't do things in mili amps at all, but after saying that I am sure something will come up.

Between the charger, and the meter you can do a lot. While I have other tools to test with I use a meter like this one I mention and a simple test light you can buy for 4 dollars also in walley world.. It looks like a ice pick with a wire.

That is a go no go test tool and fast to use. It has no batteries, and is used on 12 volt systems only, mainly because the bulb is rated to 12 volts.

With these 2 tools I can fix just about any 12 volt problem.

[MadTripper]

I actually have two DMM's, an analog mm, and even an O scope. *I am familiar with quite a bit electrically however charging and ignition systems are items I really haven't dug into. *This is great information however and explains another issue I had with my '72 CB350.

I guess I wasn't too clear on my snow blower. It is actually a wheel horse attachment that mounts on the tractor. I stumbled on this as well and picked it up for no charge. Amazing what you find when you put the word out. The guy has two of them and no use for either. Anyway, great info.

Tripper

[Mac_Muz]

Well you asked about another tool, the "lawn mower" which I assumed must have a battery. Is it your wife who will more or less use the Wheel Horse? And so you have some other tool that has a battery?

With your back ground this should be easy.

Perhaps on line you can find a wiring diagram and see what type of charging systems you have for everything ya got.

While I am not hands on familar with you bike as an example I pretty much know how it works..

There is likely to be 3 colored wires all different to the field coil. One of those 3 will likely be what ever color is common as groun over the whole bike. That leaves 2 wires. With the key on, engine not running, one of those will likey read full battery voltage.
That leaves one... With the engine running it will read apx + 1 volt 1/2 battery voltage.

There will be a gollywobbler set of wires headed the same way all one color. These go to the stator, could be 4, 6. and or maybe an odd number but the odd one out might have a diode in line.

None of the above are moving parts.

The moving part will be the rotor and have no wires at all. It will be soft iron and slotted, as it spins since it is attached to the crank it created a field from the field coil to pass thru the slots and "Induces" a current flow over and past the stator. Each time a slot passes a stator coil the field collapes like it does on ignition coils.

The current produced is AC. What you will find in the wires off the stator will be AC current in volts depending on how many wires there are in that part of the system.

The lesser amount of wires the higher the current will be. The more wires the lower the current will be.

All the wires from the stator and field coil go to a connector(s) which is the worst demon in the system, and most often causes a nasty voltage drop right there.

After the connector(s) all these wires go to the rec/reg (rectifier regulator) where the ac current is sent to ground passing doides and becoming heat.

So maint on a rec/ reg is cleaning it by removing it to clean it and to clean where it bolts to the frame/body/heat sink.

The Wheel BHorse probably works in a similar way and a guess is that it has a magneto chraging and ignition system.

I worked on these about a year in 1979 after a bad bike crash, but my memory is failing, so I can't recall the specific details.

I don't think there is a gear driven generator, and I don't believe I ever saw a belt driven gennie either.

I don't recall seeing any alternator either, so it just about has to be a magneto with a rec/reg. That would be something like Harley with a permanent magnet in the fly wheel.

'IF' that is correct the weak spot is the same as above, AND a magnet in this harsh envrioment can become weak. High heat, vibration and hard knocks tend to cause magnets to get weak.

Wheel Horse was a rock solid tool at my time, so far as I considered it to be. I suspect if you do your part, it will do it's part and then some more.

[MadTripper]

I will follow up on the bike however that is on one of the further back burners due to the current season.

I have a toro zero turn lawnmower. My wife has always said that if we had a "normal" lawnmower, she would like to help mow and do some other things around the yard. Of course I couldn't just run out and purchase a lawn tractor for my wife. I kept my ears open and this wheel horse landed in my lap (with snowblower attachment).

So, I have the Toro zero turn, which is only a few years old, the wheel horse, the Honda motorcycle, and actually a 6500W generator that all get intermittent use. So keeping the battery's in good shape is important to me. Now that I have a solid idea of how to properly do so, it will fall into our whole system.

Thanks again!

Tripper

[MadTripper]

I managed to get the deck painted today. We had to do some welding to the hood portion and still need to clean that up so I'll be reassembling the deck tomorrow at some point and then moving on to the next piece.

Tripper

[LobsterPond]

We bought an Elec-Trac - it came with a snowblower (huge electric motor mounted on it) and a mower deck (2 small motors), a garden tiller and some chains. Hubby just put in some batteries and it ran!

We are working on a Hay Cutter - Ideas AnyOne??? and we bought a in-line rake for it. We also have a drag and will be building a blade plow and maybe a scrapper? Oh and I bought some electric chainsaws to plug into it and electric trimmers and will use hand drills for planting bulbs. . . what else can I do with little wonderful machine? Split and haul wood?

It needs a good paint job but we've been too busy using it to break it all down.

The only thing we can find even close is a Canadian made electric tractor. Why would they ever stop making these little gems?

[hardrock]

Hi LobsterPond!

Welcome to the board!
Never expected to find another Elec-Trac owner here.
They are great little machines.
Way ahead of their time.
If you haven't yet, visit the Elec-Trac Owner's Club online.
Lots of good info and parts sources there.

Mine's an E-20 with the 42" front mount deck.
Mostly, I use mine in the shop to load heavy stuff in/out.
It came with the rare E-T forklift attachment. :)
I'd love to have all those accessories you mentioned that go with the powerhead attachment. Thnik of the fuel savings!
I would think they would make excellent blade/scraper tractors....with all that battery weight, you probably wouldn't even have to load the tires or add any wheel weights! ;D