Mower Clicks and Clicks

Hello:
Quite the newbie and not at all a ridingMower efficienado like many on this site...in fact can't even play along with most of these posts. Long and short of it is this:
I am moving shortly and got my Craftsman LT2000 up on eBay cause I need the cash. Anyway, when I went to start the darn thing, it didn't turn over. I was however able to jump start it easily with my car battery. I figured I needed a new battery and bought one (albeit slightly less power than original) but the darn thing just clicks now...click click click. Now for the question:
Would this be the starter, solenoid etc? i was hoping that with the clues I provided (ie starts right up when attatched to the car) that someone would be able to troubleshoot a bit for me...at least narrow down the field a little bit. I have a guy from Sears coming out in a few weeks, and it will cost me about 100 bucks just for him to take a look. Anyway, there's nothing I'd like more for Fathers Day than to have someone hook me up so i can call Sears and cancel the appointment : )))
thank you!!!!!!!

hmm....not really, although they didn't look like they needed cleaning...but will give it a shot. Do you think there's a chance that the battery i bougt was too weak? I assume it would at least try to turn the darn thing over...
thank you and God Bless!

Have you jumped started the mower with the new battery on it? If not, it could be the new battery isn't charged, or is bad...it happens.

Yes...i have jumped it with the new battery and it starts right up. Would this in any way rule out [bad starter] [bad solenoid] etc...?
thanks again!

It sounds like either The new battery also has a bad cell or you have dirty connections or your starter/solenoid needs more voltage/amperage than it should.

Let us know after you have tried cleaning all the connections.

Does it continue to run when you take the jumpers off ?

yes...it runs well after the cables are off. I will try and clean the connections...thanks guys!

If the battery has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for a long period it may need charging. If you don't have a charger you can try jump starting again and leave the tractor runing for a while like a half hour to an hour and see if that works. Good luck.

thats another good suggestion>>>thank you : )

Guess I didn't think to mention charging the battery because it is always one of the first things I do with a new battery unless I can see that the seller has had them all connected to maintainer/charger.

It COULD be just one that was not fully charged.