CV25s Not charging battery

I have a CV25s-69518 on a Bob-Cat ZT21x that was purchased used about 8 years ago. It is used just for my property and I am not sure what the use was before that.

I have had the heads rebuilt 3 years ago and up until now haven't really had any huge issues. This year, I had issues with the solenoid on the carb. The unit came with an extra carb as the previous owner had bought another for it. I rebuilt the extra carb I had this year an put it on the mower which settled several issues all at once and then it quit charging.. I also had some of the wiring come loose from the plug that goes from the rest of the unit and to the motor. I cut those loose from the plug and wired them back using bullet connectors I also popped the shroud and saw that some of those wires had come loose from their connectors so I replaced the connectors. I went through all of the wiring and didn't see any cracked or burnt wiring or any that had the insulation scraped off. I thought this would settle what I thought was a starter issue and in a way it did since 1 of the wires that backed out of the terminal was the ignition wire. After refreshing everything, the mower still didn't want to start so I replaced the 4 year old under amped battery I had with a 350CCA Duracell. That's when it dawned on me that it was a charging issue. I checked the charge at the battery with the motor on and it read 11.8v. I checked the 2 outer posts on the rectifier and it was steady at 33v AC...checked the middle post and there was no voltage at all so I figured it to be a bad rectifier so I replaced it and am still not getting any voltage through the middle post.

I may not have understood how to check it. The way I did it was set the multimeter to voltage DC and then touch the red lead to the middle post and the black lead to a ground. Is it possible I got a bad rectifier out of the box or is there something else I should check? The new rectifier was a kohler OEM part # 41-403-10-S. I have read through most of the charging issue posts but most were resolved by replacing the stator which I assume is working at 33vAC or the rectifier which I did

I hope you have not tossed the old rectifier away.
The body of the rectifier makes the ground connection.
Kohler use a metal strap between one of the rectifier mounting screws and a blower housing bol.
These break eventually so the rectifier is not grounded.
Best to make up 2 short leads and run one to each side of the rectifier and 2 different grounding bolts.

Red lead to center post on rectifier and black to ground should read battery voltage. You need to find out why you are not getting battery voltage to the center connector Bad key switch, bad fuse. try running a wire from the center post of the rectifier and the positive lead of the battery and then check the voltage at the battery to see if it is charging. You can make that wire permanent if you want. It won't drain the battery, and Kohler actually recommends that the purple wire from the rectifier go straight to the battery side of the starter solenoid anyway.

The people that owned it before me put a new wiring harness on it so what is there might not be stock. Just to make sure I have looked at both but I only found 2 20 amp fuses and both are good. I will try running the wire tomorrow. I will also check the key switch. I should be able to move that purple wire to the solenoid.

The ground that I have just has a wire with terminals. I didn't check it for continuity but will also do that tomorrow.

Well I feel foolish. I went out and got all the stuff to rewire it and decided to trace the purple wire to make sure there were no breaks and that led me to a 20amp fuse. I looked at it several times during all of this and it looked fine. I tested the fuse for continuity just to see and it was blown. Cranked it up and I am now getting 14.4vDC at the battery.

Always check your fuses for continuity...it will save you some work

I thought I had this fixed but no such luck. The 20 amp fuse on the charging line (purple) keeps blowing. When it works I am getting 14 volts to the battery. I have searched the line as far as I could and didn't see any issues that would cause the fuse to blow. This just started happening all of a sudden. It blew today as soon as I turned the switch on...not engaging the starter...just in the on position. Could this be a bad ignition switch or is there other things I should look for?