Archie Dunbar
Member
My 580B ran great all summer. As it started to get cold, not even going below freezing at night, I started to experience the hesitation to move before warmup. Also started to have battery problems. Battery at least siz years old and alternator hasn't worked in a long time, never since I've had it, six months. Now that it is going down to 15ish at night, the battery packed it in and even a new one wouldn't turn it over. Ran the block heater all night, jumped the negative to ground and it would give a grown. But the cheap jumpers started to smoke. So I used both jumper wires to jump negative to ground and it started right up.
Is it any problem except for the electric bill to run the block heater all night?
Today while outside air temp was 20's, the exhaust manifold pre-start was cold though slightly warmer than the rest of the machine. Side of the Block was slightly warm and the outside of the block heater was very warm though I think I could have kept holding it without getting burned. Does that seem about right?
Should I use a fuel additive?
I guess I should have already switched to 20 weight oil?
When the motor is stiff from cold, is the current draw on the battery higher? How does it know. I would have thought that the draw would always be the same but that it would just start up faster when not cold.
I did figure out that my negative ground cable needs replaced or connections cleaned or something. I had checked the resistance through it and it seemed small bit I guess with a cable that big it should have been zero.
Probably should put this in a different thread but I did buy a rebuild 10si from O'Reilly's for $33. May have been a bad idea. First, I knew I would need to change the pulley. The armature of the new alternator does not have a place in the end for an allen wrench. Just one of those star drives and a really pretty small one at that. Then once the pully was on it looks like the armature has visible runout. Don't think it is a bent pulley. I probably could just use the old armature from the original alternator. I do have the kit to convert to one wire bit wanted to see how it ran on the old set up first. Old set up is Big wire to ammeter and so on, little wire jumpered 1 to 2 and then straight to the battery switch. I know there is supposed to be a resistor but there are also people who claim that it is not necessary.
Is it any problem except for the electric bill to run the block heater all night?
Today while outside air temp was 20's, the exhaust manifold pre-start was cold though slightly warmer than the rest of the machine. Side of the Block was slightly warm and the outside of the block heater was very warm though I think I could have kept holding it without getting burned. Does that seem about right?
Should I use a fuel additive?
I guess I should have already switched to 20 weight oil?
When the motor is stiff from cold, is the current draw on the battery higher? How does it know. I would have thought that the draw would always be the same but that it would just start up faster when not cold.
I did figure out that my negative ground cable needs replaced or connections cleaned or something. I had checked the resistance through it and it seemed small bit I guess with a cable that big it should have been zero.
Probably should put this in a different thread but I did buy a rebuild 10si from O'Reilly's for $33. May have been a bad idea. First, I knew I would need to change the pulley. The armature of the new alternator does not have a place in the end for an allen wrench. Just one of those star drives and a really pretty small one at that. Then once the pully was on it looks like the armature has visible runout. Don't think it is a bent pulley. I probably could just use the old armature from the original alternator. I do have the kit to convert to one wire bit wanted to see how it ran on the old set up first. Old set up is Big wire to ammeter and so on, little wire jumpered 1 to 2 and then straight to the battery switch. I know there is supposed to be a resistor but there are also people who claim that it is not necessary.
