Boosting a tractor

Is it safe to boost a tractor from 2 batteries. Had a tractor that wouldn't start so I first tried just the truck and it just wouldn't do it and then I hooked another tractor up. Truck hooked to dead battery, tractor to starter. Is this really a good idea? I picture electronics getting fried in the truck somehow but being DC I don't know. Both cables were hooked to battery posts on good batteries, not grounded to frame.

This just my experience, and yours may vary, but I've found that the restriction usually is in the jumper cables, not the battery! I've had good luck with using 2 sets of jumper cables, paralleled, from one battery to one battery.
JMHO, HTH, Dave

Welllllllllll any battery jumping isnt the safest thing in the world ya know and yes Ive used 2 batteries before, but if you follow a few safety procedures you will liklely live another day.


1) Its ALWAYS Pos to Pos and Neg to Neg with respect to the battery posts regardless if some huge hunk of iron is bonded to one or the other battery terminals

2) Its best NOT to be making the last connection near the top of any battery because thats where explosive gases might accumulate and making or breaking connections usually makes a spark and that can ignite explosive gas which just might splash acid on you or your eyes.

3) If you first jump say the pos of one battery to the positive of the other (talkin both vehicles Neg grounded here) but then make the last connections on the frame or frames away from the battery (on or near starter is a good place) thats safer then making the last connections on the battery as warned above.

4) CAUTION many old tractors are Pos ground but its still rule No 1 above i.e. Pos to Pos Neg to Neg as far as the batteries are concerned. If you were to use a neg grounded truck to jump a pos grounded tarctor you still use rule 1, but I wouldnt want the truck and tractor frames to come in contact with each other.

5) Dont use a 12 volt battery to jump a 6 volt battery.

6) On many tractors its possible to just jump energize the starter motor without having to jump the tractor battery ya know!!!!!!!!!

CLOSING, did I mention Pos to Pos, neg to neg, and did I mention dont make the last connection near the top of any battery???????????????

John T

I agree........if one is gonna have do much boosting, they need something better than a pair of Wal-mart/TSC booster cables. Local business that sold a lot of used/salvage 'stuff' got in thousands of ft of welding cable about 25 years ago; it was either 2/0 or 4/0; I bought a bunch of it (and some 1000 amp clamps) and made 8 sets of booster cables. Had enough for every vehicle on the farm. Usually don't even need to have the boosting vehicle running to give someone a boost.......from a truck with a 1000cca battery.

I knew that was going to come up. I have a bunch of crappy booster cables but I made up a short pair last year of heavy cable and 800 amp clamps. All the connections are soldered and those cables will get very warm when asked to.
Booster cable clamps

If it's an old tractor with a simple transmission why not pull start it?

I wish. It has a power director so no luck.

You cannot put too many amps on a starter. You can hook 15 batterys to it and as long as all positives are hooked together and all negs hooked together, no problem. Now when I was a yungsta' I woukd hook the leads to two different dead batterys. The pos lead on the pos of one and the neg on the neg of the second. Then hook the pos of 2 to the neg of 1 to place the two batteries in series. Two 8 or 9 volt capable batteries will add up to 16-18 volts and will spin a starter real quick. Good idea? Heck no. But it did get us out of a jam or two. I really don't recommend this as there is so much that could go wrong with todays vehicles, but if someone needs to go to the doc and the battery picks that time to drop a cell or two...

Aaron

If the battery is just dead but not a junk battery you need to let it charge up for a bit before trying to start it.
The dead battery will be pulling current and until it comes up enough most of the current being passed through the jumpers will not go to the starter.

Yes you can use 2 different batteries to jump but I would make sure the both of the jumping vehicles were not running at the same time to avoid the possibility of charging system damage.