If the Tractor Won't Start on a Weekend, Who You Gonna Call? (the guy who sold it to you))

You're all pumped to brush hog on a Friday afternoon/evening and the tractor won't start. Ever been there? In this video +I show some troubleshooting techniques that the average DIY person can do to get him back in the field, even after hours when the local dealership may be closed. If turning the key lights up the dash lights but doesn't make the tractor crank, you have an electrical problem...and it could be very easy to diagnose and repair. We're going to look at the battery connection and the safety switches. SPOILER ALERT: we are successful!

When I still worked at a dealership, my old friend Jim, and his brother Gene, were debating whether to get rid of the old family tractor and get a new one. They were tired of trying to go out and use the old tractor (I think it was a Case, could have been John Deere, but really don't remember) and it wouldn't crank, or the fuel was bad; there was always a mechanical issue. They indicated that they hated mechanical problems and weren't talented at technician-type activities. They wanted something reliable that started and ran. If I remember right, we had just accepted a New Holland TC45 compact on consignment. It was one of our customers who was retiring and wanted us to sell his tractor. It didn't have many hours, had been well maintained, and would make Jim and Gene a perfect tractor. I wrote up the deal in September, 2013, they took the tractor home and I never heard back from them. Until last Friday.

By now, I've been out of the dealership world for five years, but once you sell a tractor, you feel an obligation to the customer, even more so when its an old friend. Jim's tractor wouldn't start, he had chores to do, and he wanted help from old Mike to get him going.

When he described the problem I knew it had to be simple. He'd been using the tractor, backed it into the shed and shut it off, now it wouldn't start. Sounds to me like either a bad battery connection or a safety switch. I loaded up my tools and a big cup of coffee on Saturday morning and headed to Jim's house.

When I saw the battery, I thought it would be a short video. Jim's place is immaculate, his tractor could use a little tender loving care. There was a garden growing on the battery of nasty white and green acid. We took the terminals loose, cleaned them up and put them back on. I really expected the tractor to start at that point but it didn't. Rats...

The next step is to check the safety switches, I'm betting one of them is bad. I brought the seat switch off my TC40 to check Jim's seat switch. I unplugged his, plugged mine in, and the result was the same. Time to get dirty.

Before I went to Jim's I checked New Holland's parts website to see where all the safety switches were. If your tractor brand has the parts diagrams online it's real easy to see where switches of this type are before you get under the tractor. Time to find the switches and use my tool.

When someone tells me their tractor won't start I always tell them to check safety switches, but I've never shown in a video how easy that is. Just strip the insulation off a wire on both ends and plug those ends into the connection that goes to the safety switch and you've overridden it. DO THIS ONLY TO DIAGNOSE, NEVER OVERRIDE SAFETY SWITCHES PERMANENTLY AND NEVER, EVER TRY TO START A TRACTOR WHILE IN THE PATH OF IT OR UNDERNEATH IT.

The next step was the emergency brake switch. I unplugged the switch, plugged my wire in so it was touching the prongs inside the connection, got out from under the tractor and we tried it again...nothing. So we knew the emergency brake switch wasn't the problem. Next stop was the neutral start switch and EUREKA! There's a wire unplugged. Plugged it back in, got out from under the tractor and it started and ran like a champ!

Had the wire not been unplugged, I would have bypassed the neutral start switch, then the PTO engage switch, and in that scenario, it's likely one of them is bad and the tractor starts when the system is overridden. At that point, we would have had to go to the local dealer and get a replacement before the tractor could be used.

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