[Charlie]

I’ve been dealing with charging issues on my late-70’s Ford 1600 tractor. This was a Japanese-built tractor. They’re really great - until something goes wrong. Finding parts was typically difficult, but seems to have gotten easier in the past ten years thanks to the internet. It’s easier finding parts for an old 8N from the 50’s!

I decided to document this here because all my internet searches for the subject usually turned up with someone having similar issues as I am having, but never seemed to find the answer. Those folks, like myself, spent money on both alternators AND regulators and still got nowhere. Well, dammit, I finally got it! Maybe this will help someone else.

My charge light first came on about 5 years ago. When I checked things out, that light was right. It wasn’t charging. So, for all this time, I just go out there and put the battery charger on it now and then. It gets me though the day.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the battery wasn’t taking much of a charge. I remember buying that battery the same week of Hurricane Ike… that was in 2008. Hell… seven years for a Walmart battery isn’t too bad… so went and bought another.

Since I was buying a new battery, I decided to see about fixing the charging issue. First, I took the original alternator down to the auto parts store so they could test it on the machine. Come to find out, they cant just put them on there and see what kind of amperage it’s putting out like they used to. The new testers have a friggin computer in it that wants data about the car… what year, make, model, etc. Then, the tester only tells you if the alternator passes or fails. There’s no meter to give you volts and amps. When I told the guy it was from a tractor, he just shook his head “no” and explained how the new tester worked. Basically, these modern testers at the parts house are too smart for their own good! I know this alternator (it’s a Hatichi) was used in certain cars/trucks… seems I recall Datsun/Nissan/Isuzu after all my internet searching, but it wasn’t enough for that guy to go on. Curses!!

The bearings in the original felt a little sloppy, and I found new alternators on the web for 67 dollars, so I decided to just buy one. It arrived a week later, but no go. Didn’t work.

Went to find a regulator. The old unit is mechanical, and after entering part number TL1Z-61D in a google search, come to find out it’s a pretty common regulator used on many Jap vehicles of the 1970’s. However, I discovered a solid-state regulator that was a replacement for the TL1Z-61D and bought that instead. It was 23 dollars. Got it. Didn’t work. Period. The dash light wouldn’t even come on anymore! What a disappointment! I read someone’s comment that it may be necessary to change the wires around. Well, without a diagram of the new unit, I can’t really do that.

Twice before, I had played with the old regulator… checking the resistors and relay coils… never found anything open. So after checking it a third time this week, I decided to assume the regulator was good and go look around on the tractor for something else.

Continued in next post...