850 won't crank

First Situation: The 850 was converted to 12v prior to my ownership but it has never kept the battery charged. A fully charged battery will last three to four hours before I begin to have running problems, so I put it on a charger after each use. I have never gotten around to having this straightened out. The old battery had lasted beyond expectation, but when it finally died out completely I bought a new one. I still have to recharge it often.

Now, Second Situation: I needed to pull a log yesterday and although the battery wasn't fully charged, I did get the tractor started. While pulling the log I drove through some brush and a small limb punctured a hole in the radiator. It took a few minutes before I smelled the coolant and found out about the hole. The fan was blowing coolant back, and the fan-belt began to slip causing the fan to turn irregularly. I unhooked the log and headed back to the shop.

Although the temperature gauge showed that it was getting hotter, it never actually overheated. I almost made it back before the engine began to power down and sounded like it was running on one cylinder. It died and I tried to restart. It wouldn't crank at all.

I figured that since it hadn't lost much coolant and wasn't overheating, then the problem had to do with the First Situation. Maybe dead battery. I wasn't close enough to the shop to hook it to the charger so I had to remove the battery. After re-charging it overnight, I re-installed it, but the starter still isn't cranking.

Could the coolant blowing back have created a new problem? It's going to get below freezing this weekend and I would like to get the tractor inside. Anybody got a clue what is wrong?

If the coolant fell below the level of the temperature probe it wouldn't read hot. When you say it wont crank do you mean the starter won't rotate, or the starter won't turn the engine over?

Grab the fan belt and see if the motor will turn at all.

You may have a couple of problems. Engine could have gotten hot enough to lock it up so you need to see if it is still free to spin over. Or you may have blown the head gasket by getting it hot and now one of more cylinder is full of coolant which would lock it up. Or the coolant hitting the start and solenoid may have cause a short in the system so it will not spin it over

Starter will not turn.

I grabbed the belt and it will turn.

Since there is no response at all from the starter, no clicking or anything, I'm inclined to think also that something is shorted out. Even though I have repaired some things on this old Ford tractor, electrical issues stump me!

I'm probably way off, but my 8N was doing something similar. The starter wouldn't crank. But mine was making a high pitch squeal. It turned out to be the bendix. Pulled the starter and the bendix kind of had lost the end. Replaced it and I was good to go.

My brother ruined the engine in our 4320 buy doing the exact same thing water got below the temperature sender and didn?t read hot but it was

The solenoid has 2 big posts. Make 1000% sure it is out of gear and then jump across the 2 big posts with a heavy wire. If it spins over when you do that then good chance the solenoid is bad or the wire from the starter button to the solenoid is broken some where

I sure didn't know about the possibility that the 850 could have overheated even though the gage didn't show it. From the moment that I got the hole in the
radiator to when the engine shut down was less than 15 minutes. I don't think the engine is locked up, but I do have a hole in the radiator to contend with, and
whatever it is that's preventing the starter from turning over. But, with the wife's help, I go my tractor inside the shop where it won't freeze up and I can work on
it when I get the time. Thanks for the advice. You all are good people!

If it wasn?t completely dry on antifreeze it?s prowbly not locked up

It still has about half of the anti-freeze in it, so I hope that the engine is okay. It's a good ole tractor and I really hate that I hurt it at all.

Opps ! here's the message reply. I have a WC with a bad starter cable , found out after swaping wd-45 starter and no cranking. Used jumper and it started.Seen some weird stuff in my day that was hard to annalyze .