DIY: Troubleshooting Lawn Mower Electrical Issues - Mower Will Not Start

Welcome back tight wads today. We're looking at the MTD gold lawn tractor again Will not start I'll show you some of the symptoms So if I turn the key on to here, you can see the lights are working. So it's likely not the battery When I sit on the mower Make sure the parking brakes engaged Make sure we're in neutral or forward make sure the PTO is disengaged and Turn the key nothing happens There's no click. It doesn't try to turn over at all So today we're trying to trace the steps to figure out what's causing it It's likely just an electrical issue. And today we'll try to see what is actually causing this problem So after we pop the hood you can see The wires coming out of the back of the ignition The yellow wire is the kill wire. So it goes to all of the safety switches on the mower You can chase that yellow wire throughout the mower to the different switches that would cause it to not start If you ever notice when you're riding your mower and you sit up off the seat or try to get off the mower Then the mower starts to cut off that's caused by this kill switch here when the seats down It compresses the copper Or it releases the copper and kills the connection when it's up the connection exists So to kill that connection you can simply Disconnect these two wires But the seat does not have to be down for the mower to start so we know this is not our issue The next place we look is under the mower battery. If you remove the battery, you'll notice there's a fuse right here We'll pull the fuse and check to for continuity to see if the fuse is bad If you have a voltage meter you can test a fuse You can typically visually see whether or not the fuse has a crack in it by looking at the centerpiece right here To see if it's cracked or if it's burned that would signify that the fuse is blown to test it with your voltage meter You put your leads and this is the black in the center the red one goes in the side with the ohms the ohms looks like the upside-down horseshoe and Then you set it to the ohm side of the meter right now. It says one If I touch my two leads together You'll notice the number changes that shows that a connection is being made through it doesn't really matter what the number is It just shows that a connection is being made so I'll take my two leads and doesn't matter which side and touch them to the fuse and You'll see they make a connection So the fuse is good on this one. The first safety switch can be seen right here This is part of the parking brake Assembly, it's up under the place where your feet rest on the left side And when the parking brake is compressed the switch Pushes in if this switch goes bad Right here. You will not be able to start your mower. I removed the small nut that was holding The switch in place and now we can remove it for testing. All right today. We're going to look at how to test a Switch from a riding mower the switch has a button that You push in and it does one thing and you push out and it does another so it completes circuits two different ways You can see there are Four spades in it. We'll call this the long side and the short side for reference But the long side has four spades parallel with it and each side is its own circuit So this side is one circuit and this side is the other one We're going to be checking for continuity today to test to see if this switch is still functioning properly So on my multimeter, I'm going to change to my continuity setting Which is right here with the alarm So that when a circuit is completed it Makes a beeping sound. So the first thing we're gonna do is test one side. So we put one lead on each Put a lead on each of the post Make sure the leads don't touch each other but put a lead on each of the post on the same side And you'll hear there's no tone. So we know on this side. Hopefully when I push the button It completes the circuit so since this side Completes the circuit with the button pushed in the other side should complete the circuit with the button out So we'll do the same thing on the other side It doesn't matter which lead goes on which spade as long as you're testing on the same side spades parallel with each other and The button is not pushed in and The circuit is completed. I'll let you know that this switch is good Alright, there's a second switch for the PTO As you can see an operation right here It's right to the left of the PTO when you're sitting on the mower Inside the battery compartment when I lower the PTO the switch comes up When I raise the PTO or turn off the PTO the switch comes down That switch can fail also and if it fails the mower will not start The next thing to check is the solenoid on this particular tractor It is in the very back corner of the lawnmower The solenoid controls the current going to the starter So you can see it's mounted on the inside, but the mounting bracket is on the outside We're going to remove the solenoid run some tests and if we need to we'll replace it We'll start by removing the two bolts seen from the back of the mower once the bolts are removed you should be able to lift up and Slide the solenoid free Once you have your solenoid removed You need to look at it and make sure you know what kind you have This is considered a four post one two three four so it's a four post solenoid That also grounds to the body of the tractor By these back here. All right, we are going to show you how to test the solenoid. This is my new one So we're gonna show you it first We have a wire going to the negative battery terminal on our mower battery Then we're gonna connect to one of these posts at the bottom. It doesn't matter which one you connect it to I just have some attic alligator clips and make it a lot safer when doing this Ideally you would have cords with alligator clips on both ends So you don't have to the risk of getting shocked I'm gonna take the two ends of my tester I'm turned to continuity with the alarm. So if I touch them together You hear the alarm and I'm gonna touch them to each of these posts again It doesn't matter and I'm gonna touch the tip of these alligator clips and you'll hear a click And you see I get continuity so this sends a when you touch this to here sends a 12 volt Charge through the alternator making the connection between these two poles And if you get continuity at that point, you'll hear a click and then you'll get the continuity Then you know that often that the solenoid is good. So I'll repeat the process With the solenoid that was in my lawn tractor Again, connect the negative to one of the poles hook up your leads and then connect your alligator clip to the other one and You'll see I get no continuity So there's no power Getting from here To the center which has a magnet in it that makes the connection between these two posts. So this solenoid is bad All right. I have the wires connected to my new solenoid now try to look at them looking from above the green goes on the right the orange on the left and then the red terminal battery cable from the battery goes on the right side post and The other one with the Green and orange attached to it and the black terminal cable go to the left post so once you get all those hook back up you have to get your solenoid back into the frame of the mower Which is a little bit difficult, but just work with it till you get it there and then we'll reconnect the rest of our wires make sure when you get your solenoid back in place that you do reconnect the Ground terminal that goes on the bolt, but we'll look at that when we visit the back so I've got the solenoid back on and Made sure that I connected the wire from the negative battery terminal to the ground here Now I'll replace the battery and give it a start and see if it works All right, so we're back on the mower. I have the parking brake locked Have everything done and we're going to turn the key I'll be optimistic here turn the key And we have ignition so after testing several of the safety switches and Finally working my way to the solenoid, which is the most difficult thing to replace in my opinion We have a lawnmower. That's running properly again If you found this video helpful Give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel If you want to see a video showing how to change the main deck belt on your riding mower Click the video in the top left if you want to see a video Showing how to change the upper drive belt on your riding mower. Click the video in the top, right?