Hi everybody, have an issue with a troy bilt 13WX78KSO11 317740 It has a 20 HP kohler engine. A friend of mine called me to look at it. He said it wouldn't start. He had a charger on it and said he tried jumping it with his pickup too with the engine running. When I got there the first thing I noticed it that the new battery he installed was put in with the cables mounted to opposite termanals. So I changed them around and got nothing. charged the battery and got nothing. If I jump it at the starter the starter spins. What is going on here? I didn't test the battery yet Help!
If he got lucky he blew the fuse which should be located around the battery area. On some mowers with the battery under the seat, you will have to remove the battery to find the fuse, or it may be clipped to the frame at the tip of the hitch piece on the rear.
If he didn't get lucky, the voltage regulator, stator, ignition modules are all possible locations for damage.
If the battery has only 2 wires then follow the + one to the starter solenoid.
From the same terminal that the battery lead connects to there should be a thinner wire and that wire goes to the starter switch & is generally fused.
I just finished a mower that had the battery installed backwards. It blew a 30 amp fuse that guy had replaced after blowing the 20 amp fuse that it calls for. It also took out the rectifier/regulator and burned the center internal connection to the PTO switch, all of which needed replacing. His complaint was that the starter motor would turn but wouldn't engage to start the mower. It was turning backwards!
I hope this hasn't happened to yours.
Good Luck and sorry for the negative post.
I have 2 riding lawn tractors and have worked on just a few and if I recall the cables are so short it would be nearly impossible to hook the cables up wrong if the battery was correct for a particular mower. Maybe could with some rigging but not normally.
Would be easy to hook up cables backwards though with a wrong battery.
