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Hello everyone, my name is Chris and I live in York PA. I recently just moved and now am responsible for taking care of the 1 acre of land my house sits on. I was looking into getting a riding mower to use. I was looking to spend no more than $200. I don't mind getting one that needs small repairs as I am pretty handy with mechanical stuff and am sure I could fix whatevers wrong.

My friends dad has a John Deere 111. He bought it a few years ago in working order but never really used it. He said he just had a newer battery installed along with a new spark plug and starter. After he got it back, he said it wouldn't start and it has been sitting there collecting dust for about a year now. He claims he paid $500 for it many years ago.

I went to inspect it yesterday and we hooked some jumper cables up to it and tried to start it. Nothing would happen. No sounds or anything were heard. Completely dead. I did spin the top of the motor and it did move so i guess the motors not seized or anything. I also tried hooking the positive cable directly to the big red starter wire but nothing happened. He was asking $250 for it in it's current conidition. I was thinking more along the lines of $100-$150. Does that sound like a fair offer for this mower? Also if I do get the mower or go to look at it again, is there anything that I could try to get it to crank over atleast. It won't start as the spark plug has been removed, however I want to see if it atleast cranks. Thanks for your help!

It could be a number of things that keep it from turning over.

Safety switches in seat or shift lever - Fuses - Key switch -- OR mice have a tendancy to chew wires ---- just go over the wiring and see that everything is connected and wires are not chewed. It is probably something fairly simple.

I don't know what to tell you about price, but I would probably offer $100 and say you will get it out of his way.

Good Luck ! :biggrin:

Thank you for the reply. I was thinking about safety switches and such. Under the seat there is a wire that is not connected. It has a female connector end on it like it would plug into something, however I don't see any male connector under the seat for it to plug into.

If I remember correctly - there should be a hole in the padding on the bottom of the seat and the switch would be up inside there with a male connector.

It is usually something simple like that.

Ok I will check that out. Do you by any chance know if this is the type of circuit that even though its unplugged will still keep the mower from starting? Is there anyway to bypass the safeties and jump the starter to get it to spin the motor over? I know it won't start because there is a missing spark plug but it would atleast be good to be able to see if it turns over and I could possibly check for spark.

It might be good to put a thread in the John Deere forum - there may be someone there that knows that specific model.

BKBrown said:

It might be good to put a thread in the John Deere forum - there may be someone there that knows that specific model.

Click to expand...

Will do thanks.