Recent content by stembridge

Had another session with the lawn vac today, about two hours or so. The tractor ran perfectly, and I have growing confidence the root problem has indeed been identified and corrected. I'll call it "fixed" at this point. es

Ran the tractor with the Johnny Bucket for ~30 minutes moving some topsoil into our kitchen garden area, no issues. @slomo - my sleeve hitch and bucket lift motors are grounded directly to the (-) terminal for the reason you state. I've seen folks discussing the wiring upgrade on car sound...

Ran the tractor with the DR vac for a couple hours today and not a hiccup! I think I found where the battery (-) terminates, at the base of the starter. Didn't pull it off yet, as I needed to get the yard done. Doesn't appear to have any corrosion on it, but we'll see what I find when I...

I won't call this a permanent fix until I've run it numerous times without issue. I'll update this thread occasionally, hopefully with positive results. Many, many thanks to everyone for their input! es

New ground strap is installed, direct from (-) to the engine block. Starts and runs fine! I drove it over to my garage and jacked it up to see if I could locate the frame end of the battery ground cable, but it still eludes me. Probably buried inside the frame under the operator platform. I'll...

I've run all my tests on the RCM and safety switches, and everything checked out okay - a real head-scratcher. One of the yootoob vids I looked at last night showed a guy that used jumper cables (negative side only) to jump directly from the battery (-) to the engine block to get around a bad...

I'll have to take the battery into town to have it load tested - all I have is a basic 'toaster' tester, which I think isn't meant for small batteries. The symptoms are such that the engine starts stumbling off and on, usually after running for 15-30 minutes, but sometimes immediately after...

I tested between the battery end of the ground (black) cable and a stud on the engine - zero resistance (well, 00.1), which should indicate the cable doesn't have an open in it (tested with cable end detached from battery). Also tested between the battery end of the red cable (while attached to...

Just attempted to start it to pull it out of the garden shed - cranked and immediately started cutting in and out, then died completely after ~10-15 seconds of semi-running. Will not restart (no click at starter), although other powered features work (headlights, etc.). This is consistent with...

I’ll check the fuel, today hopefully, but keep in mind that this issue sometimes gets so bad that the engine dies and then will not turn over for a while (starter does not even click). Lights will come on and I can raise/lower the deck, so there’s power. That’s why I’m pretty sure this is an...

Uploaded a short video taken while the engine was stumbling: es

Well, it's back to sputtering again. Disconnected both connectors mentioned above, cleaned and reconnected, with no improvement this time. es

I've run the tractor a couple more times, the last was plowing up my garden spot. As I started the first pass (putting the engine under load), it started spluttering again, so at the end of the row, I hopped off and jiggled both the engine-to-tractor harness connector as well as the rectifier...

UPDATE: Mowed yesterday and not a single hiccup. Hopefully I've found the issue, but I won't be 100% convinced until it goes for several months without the problem recurring. es

Used the XT3 to pull my yard wagon yesterday (starting to clean out the garden), and it fired off fine. Battery was indicating 12.5V before I started it (after sitting for five days). I let it run at full throttle while I was working (maybe 45 minutes), and it hiccuped once or twice toward the...