Replacement Tractor Battery

[Old McDonald]

I am storing a Shibaura D23F tractor and other equipment etc. on a long-term basis for someone who is overseas. The deal is I get to use the tractor and I have my orchard boom sprayer permanently attached - all 2.9m of it. The tractor battery has died. I swapped it and the one from my NH45 to check them. A good run on the NH and it started OK immediately after switching off, but a few hours later nothing. Did this twice. The NH battery has been fine on the Shibaura. The tractor make is unimportant, it is just to advise readers what it is - 20+hp and made mid 1980s.

I want to replace the battery on the Shibaura with something decent. Forget brands, I have a wide choice. I am no expert on sizing and would appreciate advice on the ah and CCA I should be looking at. The tractor is often unused for between 2 and 4 weeks, rarely gets over 20 hours use over 2 or 3 days, and most often is one day of 4 to 6 hours then not used again for the 2 to 4 weeks mentioned.

 

[brigadoon]

I am storing a Shibaura D23F tractor and other equipment etc. on a long-term basis for someone who is overseas. The deal is I get to use the tractor and I have my orchard boom sprayer permanently attached - all 2.9m of it. The tractor battery has died. I swapped it and the one from my NH45 to check them. A good run on the NH and it started OK immediately after switching off, but a few hours later nothing. Did this twice. The NH battery has been fine on the Shibaura. The tractor make is unimportant, it is just to advise readers what it is - 20+hp and made mid 1980s.

I want to replace the battery on the Shibaura with something decent. Forget brands, I have a wide choice. I am no expert on sizing and would appreciate advice on the ah and CCA I should be looking at. The tractor is often unused for between 2 and 4 weeks, rarely gets over 20 hours use over 2 or 3 days, and most often is one day of 4 to 6 hours then not used again for the 2 to 4 weeks mentioned.

I cannot comment directly on the battery size you need but with that usage pattern buy yourself a small solar panel and hook it up to the battery while the tractor is lying idle

I would simply take the spec you need off the old battery if it can still be read - and maybe up it a little or even use the NH spec so you can jump the NH if needed - my landrover always has a battery which will jump start the tractor if necessary

 

[feilding]

Put a battery isolator switch on tractor when new battery is fitted, less than a fiver off eBay, so tractor can stand for months ,but battery does not go flat, so will start when you need it. I've fitted a few to small tractors and cars. Works well.

 

[Gone Shooting]

Trickle charger ?

 

[Old McDonald]

Thanks for the responses. I have had the Shibaura with me for about 3 years and never previously had any problems, so standing for a couple of weeks or more seems OK. In the colder weather the heater plug light shows and I use it. Temperatures are now in the low 20s during the day, so no heater needed. It is just that the battery, of unknown age, has failed.

I will be in self-imposed quarantine for a while yet, but I will be using both tractors later this week, so was thinking something along the lines suggested by @brigadoon to save messing about with jump starting. I can buy a new battery for the NH, leaving the previous NH battery on the Shibaura. It is somewhat bigger so will be useful if need be. I well remember using my old landrover in the 1970s to jump start all sorts of vehicles. The NH dealer will deliver if I ask and leave it in a shed in the yard so no problems.

The tractor is rather an oddity, and was imported as a "grey market" one - no documents, no reg plates. No card available to buy green (red) diesel for it without reg, but I have the NH allowance. The owner used it a fair bit soon after he bought it. It originally had paddy rice tyres on and they were worn down to a bit more than full height of normal ag tyres before they disintegrated. It is 3-cyl (forget the engine size offhand) has a 6 range 4 speed gearbox and flat out might reach a bit more than 10mph in top. It also has a 4 speed pto but I have not tried to work out the speeds. For the sprayer the lowest setting at about 1100rpm is a good output. All the decals are in Japanese and it has some interesting facilities like hydraulic levelling of the tpl arms. The owner told me it has some other electronics that are very advanced for its age, but apparently a lot of them do not work due to neglect by the previous owner and wires pulled out.

Again, thanks all for your input.

 

[Exfarmer]

I doubt very much that any advice on battery brands here will be much use to you, as most are made by one or two manufacturers. The brands are more about the market they are selling into.
for that size tractor , I would be looking for a battery which fits the box it sits, in and make sure the terminals are in the coRrect place for the leads. The other aspects such as amp hours should make little odds but a good max discharge rate will help start a diesel.
Those Shibaura tractors are a common sitein the far east and I think many were also marketed by the main line manufacturers in the West . Fairly sure they are regarded as high quality being Japanese. Possibly came over when so many dodgy Japanese 4 WD‘s did around the turn of the century, many with no paperwork. Just as so many of our 4WD’s go to the Middle East today

 

[Old McDonald]

@Exfarmer I was not asking for brands, but size as you also mention - particularly CCA as I do not have much knowledge on the subject. The box is plenty big enough to take anything anyone is likely to try to fit in there, and both leads are long enough to reach a terminal in any position so long as they are at the ends and that is why I made no mention of restrictions in the OP. Thanks for your resposne though.

I understand there were quite a lot of far eastern tractors in various brands imported into Portugal at one stage - I have seen several in dealers' yards. Those who do not know often buy them. Many wannabes come here with no experience whatsoever of agriculture and buy a few, or many, acres in a neglected state because it has been their "dream" to have land and neglected land, of which there is an enormous amount, is very cheap. They continue dreaming for a while after they buy the land. Some never learn, but to be fair, some do learn very quickly - the bloke who owns the Shibaura did.

 

[anzani]

@Exfarmer I was not asking for brands, but size as you also mention - particularly CCA as I do not have much knowledge on the subject. The box is plenty big enough to take anything anyone is likely to try to fit in there, and both leads are long enough to reach a terminal in any position so long as they are at the ends and that is why I made no mention of restrictions in the OP. Thanks for your resposne though.

I understand there were quite a lot of far eastern tractors in various brands imported into Portugal at one stage - I have seen several in dealers' yards. Those who do not know often buy them. Many wannabes come here with no experience whatsoever of agriculture and buy a few, or many, acres in a neglected state because it has been their "dream" to have land and neglected land, of which there is an enormous amount, is very cheap. They continue dreaming for a while after they buy the land. Some never learn, but to be fair, some do learn very quickly - the bloke who owns the Shibaura did.

If it is of any assistance, SHIBURA have a EU division in Netherlands and advertise that their distributor dealer in Portugal is:

Home - Moviter

 

[Old McDonald]

Thanks. Shibaura does not appear on the list of makes the deal with, but I will pass it on to the tractor's owner for future reference. He told me it is very similar, and parts exchangeable, with a Ford but I forget which model, and my NH dealer supplies all the parts he has so far needed - mainly filters I think and a bearing.

 

[agrimax]

You'll probably find that a Ford 1910 is the same thing only in blue and white. An 069 battery with 75AH and 560CCA is mentioned. That's a fairly common battery found in diesel cars.It's also available in both higher AH and CCA but in the same size casing. You could Google 069 battery for its exterior size. Alternatively,if the battery box is big enough, a 643 tractor battery would have bigger CCA and will crank over for longer in cold weather if it chose not to start easily. Again Google for dimensions etc.
Personally I try to go with the biggest in dimensions with the highest CCA,that will fit into the box/tray.It means that if the weather turns very cold or it needs a lot of cranking after running out of fuel or bleeding or whatever,it'll crank over a lot longer to get it going again.

 

[A1an]

Would you mind posting a picture of said tractor?

 

[Old McDonald]

@agrimax Thanks. Plenty of responses to my question. I have decided to take the plunge of leaving the NH battery on the Shibaura and buying a new one for the NH - and that is being left for the new owner of the quinta. It will be more than adequate for the smaller tractor. As mentioned above the space available is far bigger than anyone would ever want. I do not know why they made it so big, or the leads so long. Maybe they envisaged putting a big engine in the frame?

Would you mind posting a picture of said tractor?

Sorry, I do not own a camera. There is bound to be a photo on the internet. It is a Shibaura Stiger D23F. Note the spelling of Stiger. It is not the same as Steiger.

 

[Kidds]

My tractor did a similar trick about 12 months ago. I replaced the battery but continued to have problems so assumed it was the alternator after all.
Turned out the replacement battery was duff so the supplier ordered a new one again, meanwhile I needed the tractor so ran the battery through a "recondition mode" on my charger. It cleans the plates inside or some other such thing I don't need to know.
It fixed the battery and even though I did get a new one I haven't fitted it yet. Was even fine throughout the winter.
I fully recommend such a charger, I have recovered enough batteries that the charger has paid for itself many times over. It doesn't fix every one and sometimes I give it two goes at reconditioning. This is from a battery that won't hold a charge and won.t start a tractor being brought back to the battery being completely fine. My tractor battery was £80, the charger was £30 at the time.
CTEK make them, I think mine is Ring.

 

[jellybean]

Not directly related to Old Mcdonalds problem but like Kidds I have had good results getting "duff" batteries working again. I probably have the same charger too. Any Battery that shows signs of being not up to standard on a vehicle gets replaced with a new one and the old one gets put on electric fence duties. If I keep an eye on the remaining charge level and take them off the fence and fully recharge them after a few cycles they're often fully ok again. I know you are not supposed to deeply discharge a vehicle battery but it seems to me that half discharging and recharging has an invigorating effect. Of course somebody will come along now and say I am talking b------ks.

 

[neilo]

I doubt very much that any advice on battery brands here will be much use to you, as most are made by one or two manufacturers. The brands are more about the market they are selling into.
for that size tractor , I would be looking for a battery which fits the box it sits, in and make sure the terminals are in the coRrect place for the leads. The other aspects such as amp hours should make little odds but a good max discharge rate will help start a diesel.

^this. Any battery of the correct voltage (I assume 12v) that fits in the battery tray and the terminals fit, will do your job. Given those basic specs, go for the maximum CCA (cranking power) and Ah you can get in that size. If it’s someone else’s tractor then you might want to weigh up cost vs how long you have access for?