old 316 john deere mower battery light on, PTO won't engage

[almonte]

HI,
I have an issue with my 1980s 316 JD. The battery light stays on. The battery has been changed. Still the light is on. Looking at the voltage regulator now. Any suggestions on where to start. It ran well last year and the light wasn't on. Also the PTO switch will not activate the mower. Are the 2 issues tied together? No problem with the PTO last year...

 

[EngineMan]

Looking at the wiring schematic there is a discharge light control unit that will turn the discharge light on/off, this unit has its power from the 2Amp fuse from the key switch (red wire), the power to the PTO is from the PTO switch (blue wire) and that comes from a relay (time delay for ignition and pto relays).
So you may have a bad discharge light control
Bad relay
Bad PTO switch
No gen power from alternator

Check and come back....!

 

[deere2110]

You may have to adjust the air gap on the clutch

 

[eric102]

Check the fuses, they can get corroded and cause problems like you describe. On my old 318 I pulled the 2 amp glass fuse out of the holder and it fell apart as I was taking it out it, very badly corroded.

 

[almonte]

HI,
I have an issue with my 1980s 316 JD. The battery light stays on. The battery has been changed. Still the light is on. Looking at the voltage regulator now. Any suggestions on where to start. It ran well last year and the light wasn't on. Also the PTO switch will not activate the mower. Are the 2 issues tied together? No problem with the PTO last year...

Thanks for the help on the mower/battery issue. We replaced the PTO switch and still no mower. Having given up and deciding to send it out to get it fixed, we put everything back together. I reminded my son that I had seen one response somewhere saying to make sure all of the bolts were in the housings. I gave him a replacement for a missing bolt and now everything works. The battery light is off and the mower started right up when tried, every time. Guess that's the trick. All parts must be returned to original locations. Fussy John Deere mower.. This is the second John Deere I have owned. The first one was a pretty basic machine and didn't have all of the electric/hydraulic controls. Never had much to fix anything on it. The motor crapped out and the repair cost was too high to consider the repairs.