STX38 electrical issues

A friend has a STX38, the electric PTO clutch burned up on it and the engine would not even turn over. I removed the pto clutch and found it to be wasted. He bought one on Ebay that was said to be good. I installed it yesterday and now the motor won't do anything not even a click from the starter relay. Is there a way to check the PTO clutch to see if it is servicable? Or could I simply jump the two wires that connect to it and see if the motor will turn over? At first I thought it was a bad battery so I charged it and still nothing from the engine or relay, I then tried to jump start the mower and nothing. I could really use some help on this one as I am stumped.

12 volts to the PTO to see if it engages.

Most likely you have burned out the fuse or fusable link ( light duty wire ) or the power relay.
I don't have service information for that mower.

However power to the ignition switch generally comes from the batery terminal on the solenoid then to the PTO switch then to the PTO clutch.
You can check the clutch bu connecting it directly to the battery.
Run a light jumper from the battey + wire to one of the trigger terminals on the starter solenoid and another from earth to the other control terminal.
Motor turns , you have an electrical problem

I checked for a fuse or fusible link and found nothing. Ran a jumper wire to the starter and it turned the motor over. Jumped the starter relay and got nothing. Checked voltage to the starter relay, it's good. Getting nothing coming out of the other side with the key in the start position. I'm waiting on a phone call right now, then I will hook power directly to the PTO clutch and post the findings. I am thinking the starter relay might be burned up.

You can check the relay, or swap it with one of the seat switch relays as they do not stop the engine cranking ( earth magneto ).
You can make a short jumper with 2 male 4.5mm spade terminals and plug it into the relay socket.
This makes that circuit permanantly closed.
I do it all the time when doing a diagnosis .
Please do not use the mower in this state

tim2 said:

I checked for a fuse or fusible link and found nothing. Ran a jumper wire to the starter and it turned the motor over. Jumped the starter relay and got nothing. Checked voltage to the starter relay, it's good. Getting nothing coming out of the other side with the key in the start position. I'm waiting on a phone call right now, then I will hook power directly to the PTO clutch and post the findings. I am thinking the starter relay might be burned up.

Click to expand...

Starter relay or starter solenoid ?
Starter solenoid should be a 4 pole type and the safetys work on both the + & - sides of the relay control

Sorry just corrected my errors on the last post. I am thinking the solenoid burned up when he kept trying to start the mower with the bad pto clutch.

I checked for a fuse or fusible link and found nothing. Ran a jumper wire to the starter and it turned the motor over. Jumped the solenoid got nothing. Checked voltage to the solenoid, it's good. Getting nothing coming out of the other side with the key in the start position. I'm waiting on a phone call right now, then I will hook power directly to the PTO clutch and post the findings. I am thinking the solenoid might be burned up. Tried testing the solenoid and have no power coming out of it to the starter.

Ok, I am out of ideas. I replaced the solenoid and still have nothing for power going to the starter. Hopefully someone else has another idea on what to check and how to approach this Deere.

tim2 said:

I checked for a fuse or fusible link and found nothing. Ran a jumper wire to the starter and it turned the motor over. Jumped the solenoid got nothing. Checked voltage to the solenoid, it's good. Getting nothing coming out of the other side with the key in the start position. I'm waiting on a phone call right now, then I will hook power directly to the PTO clutch and post the findings. I am thinking the solenoid might be burned up. Tried testing the solenoid and have no power coming out of it to the starter.

Click to expand...

Jumped the solenoid ?
How, which wires to what ?
We can not see what is happening.
The solenoid should have 4 terminals
2 big ones for the power and 2 small ones for the trigger
One small one needs + and the other needs - to make the solenoid energise
I think on your mower the + is blue & the - is black.

Usually there is a thin wire also connected to the big terminal with the wire from the battery that takes power up to the B (battery ) terminal on the ignition switch.
When you turn the switch to the Start cosition, the switch bridges the B ( battery + 12V ) to the S ( Starter or solenoid if you like ) terminal
From there it goes to the PTO switch then to the hand brake switch and finally down to the solenoid control + wire, generally dark blue on Deeres
The other control wire on the solenoid goes through the seat switch relays, ignition relay and sometimes a few others before it gets to the black control wire on the solenoid or - if you like.

Some where before th 12V + gets to the key switch there is some sort of a fuse.
You might like to get the voltmeter or teat lamp and confirm you have voltage to the ignition ( key ) switch cause if you aint got power there nothing is going to happen and you can replace the entire starting system 10 times over , it will not go.
The power feed to the clutch will either come through the same key switch or go through a relay energised by power from the key switch which then goes through the PTO switch.