Alan, about your 544,First, make sure you have a good, charged up battery. The reason I say this, is because the tractor shouldn't die just because you pulled a battery cable off; the altenator/regulator should just pick up the load. The easiest way to test an alternator is just to measure your battery voltage with the tractor running. It should be around 14.2 to 14.5 volts if everything is okay. Now, back to your drain/charging problem: Unhook the battery. Then, take your ‘ohmmeter’ and measure from ground to that big post on the alternator. Then, do it again with the leads of the ohmmeter reversed. You should get flow in one direction only. If you are getting continuity in both directions, you've just found your drain and the reason the system is not charging. It’s more than likely a leaky diode or leaky rectifier bridge inside the alternator. Those old alternator systems using the external regulator were bad about spawning leaky diodes. Good news is: the last diode I bought only cost something like $3. Hope this helps, Allan
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