the Walnut Diary

I bought the 1989 tractor last spring because it combined a loader, a heated cab, and very small size with a Mitsubishi diesel. It’s a cousin of the engine in my beloved Bolens G174.

The electrical system on the tractor is complex, to say the least. There is a shut-off switch which isolates the battery. Leaving it on will drain the battery overnight, regardless of the position of the key in the ignition switch.

This week’s task came when I finally decided that its battery was toast. I had never looked at the thing before because it lay underneath a large, cylindrical air cleaner sitting horizontally on the battery. All I had done was reach in to remove and replace cables. But the new ground made no difference. The battery had to go.

But that was a bit of a problem. The hood tips forward, but not very far, before striking the loader frame. I couldn’t find any way to remove the hood. The air cleaner came free quite easily with an ingenious arrangement of buckles, hinges, and such. In removing it I realized that all that stood between the air cleaner’s metal housing and a dead short on the positive pole of the battery was the rubber insulator on the terminal. So I removed the cables, set them out of the way, and reached in to lift out the battery by its convenient handle. Uhh…. I couldn’t get two hands into the space, I’d need to lift straight up at least two feet to clear the radiator (already showing scars from previous misadventures), and I simply didn’t have the strength to raise it from this awkward position with one hand.

Considerable fussing went into a strategy to lift the overly-tall and very heavy battery. The trick would be to get it out with neither damage to the radiator nor injury to my skeleton. Slipping batteries are murder on backs. Several hours of frustration ensued without success. Night came, and in the morning the strategy was clear to me. I would attach the chain hoist to the overhead bar of the car hoist and lift the offending, acidic lump out.

But first I had to retrieve the chain hoist from another task, where it was stretching the wall of the old garage back into square. I had needed to make the north corner of the west wall lose its southward lean of about 1 1/2″ if I was ever to install an overhead garage door between the two ends. After a few false starts I had cut two round pieces of stout 3/4″ scrap steel from a broken pickle fork (for removing ball joints). I drilled a hole at the south end of the wall into the top plate to mount one bolt. I drilled another into the bottom plate at the other end of the wall. A pair of chains shortened the diagonal to where the twelve foot reach of the chain block could tighten things up. Again, there were some false steps in this process, but once I got the chain block installed and I figured out how to operate a vertically-oriented implement on a steep slope, it produced rather astonishing results. Hundred-year-old nails in clapboards and chestnut studs were no match for the implacable pressure of the chain. Before long the wall was again square (if it ever had been). I hastily screwed boards on the diagonal into the studs and plates to hold the wall in place. Then I left it to sit for a few days.

In a burst of morning energy, I jerked the chain to lower the hook across the diagonal, and the hoist was free for its next task. The wall stayed put, without a whimper.

In the auto shop there is a loop of three strands of 1/2″ rope at the centre of the horizontal bar above the car lift. I use the chain block on it to place and remove the winter cab on one of the tractors, so it is a familiar procedure to hook it on. I carried the hoist into the garage floor in a 5 gallon pail so that its trailing chains don’t get tangled. I placed the 10′ step ladder over the pail and just to the left. I picked up the hook on the top of the hoist and dashed* up the ladder with it, perched at the top with one arm over the bar, and fastened the hook into the three strands of rope, a practiced operation. I now had a sky hook to lift the battery, even though the tractor’s hood might have to flex a bit to let the chain do its work. With the odd metallic groan, up came the deep cycle marine battery. Why would anybody put a trolling motor battery in a tractor to start it? I slid a handy oak board across the arms of the loader and wiggled the load back onto it. That solved the problem.

The replacement battery was an inch lower and about half the weight of the dead one. I simply lowered it into place by hand. The new battery from Feenstra’s started the CaseIH very well, so I drove it out of the garage in triumph and promptly forgot to shut off the main switch when I stopped the engine. The new Interstate still had enough juice to start the engine a day later.

*Dashed may mean different things to different ages.