battery replacement

[rconkin]

batteries are old, so I pulled them out. They are 6 volt, wired parallel, so I have a couple of questions.
1--I am guessing the starter is 6 volt, so I went back with 6 volt batteries. would 12 volt work?
2- I am not. tech and the battery hookup confused me. the positive on forward battery went to the thick red cable to the starter. the 2 negatives were married, not grounded. the positive on the rear battery is grounded to the frame. This makes no sense to me but that is how it was hooked up when I
got the unit.

[dtoots1]

Am not sure how that would work...both positive hook up...1 positive to ground 1 positive to starter.??????..

1... 6 volt battery hooks up..positive grounds to tractor frame...negative (black) goes to starter

[Jim B]

The first question is what are you working on? A 6-volt system puts it back around the 440IC crawler time frame.

If the negatives are both hooked together, and one positive goes to the starter and the other positive goes to ground, I don't see how it worked at all. Wired in parallel for a negative ground system would be positive to positive to starter and negative to negative to ground (reversed if a positive ground system.

The color of a battery cable really means nothing, where it connects is the important part.

If this is on the 450B you have posted about before one6 volt battery's positive terminal had to be connected to the starter. Its ground terminal would connect to the positive terminal of the second battery and the negative terminal of the second battery would be connected to ground. That would wire them in series and make the 12 volts a 450B starter needs. I believe a 450B would have used two 12-volt batteries in parallel originally.

If you are working on the 450B, do you have the Technical Manual TM1033 for a 450b which has the wiring diagrams in it?

[rconkin]

I just downloaded the diagrams, sorry for the omission it is a 450b crawler.
I will take a fresh look at it tomorrow, was unaware that two 6-volt batteries in series would give me 12 volts. thanks for that.

[boaterri]

Assuming your 450b is wired like my 450c, (we all know what assume means), you can use 12 volt batteries, wired in parallel, or 1 battery. The batteries wired in parallel give you more current to help starting in cold weather. On my machine, the batteries are wired with separate grounds from the negative terminal to the metal of the battery case and the positives wired together and then to the disconnect switch and then off to the rest of the dozer.

Hope this helps.
Rick