Riding mower with Kohler won't turn over

[rklemm60]

My Kohler command 20 Hp with a John deer 430-110 switch will not turn over even though it worked just fine as recent as two months ago. It had sat for over a year before I started it up last winter. Here are the steps I took to get it to turn over again.

• I replaced a bad 12 volt battery with a new one.
• I tested the switch using my multimeter. I connected the black COM lead to the unmarked male pole at 11 o'clock and the red probe to the unmarked 9 o'clock male lead and got the meter to beep. That led me to believe at least part of the switch was functioning, but
• I went ahead and tried to bypass the switch by working on the female connector. here I connected from the 1 o'clock female to the 5 o'clock female lead and from the 5 o'clock female to the 9 o'clock female hoping that was the starter lead. See photo.
• Then I saw an unconnected red wire coming off the Main positive lead on the 12 volt battery. I connected it to a white wire coming from somewhere upstream and it just sparked and got real hot but did not turn the engine over.
• 4 of the six leads are marked on the male connector. Starting at high noon and going clockwise the letters are G, B, G, M. The 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock male (upper left) leads are unmarked. please see 430-110 shot

Any ideas you could offer as next steps would be greatly appreciated!

 

[bertsmobile1]

So let me get this right
Without bothering to get a wiring diagram you just started to randomly connect wires
If you have managed to so much as make a flick connection between a power wire and the kill wire you have fried the magneto.
So you start by going to John Deere and buying the technical manual for your mower .
In it you will find the wiring diagram, how to test it , how to repair it , where all the parts are and what they do .

From those photos Bill the Bodger has been in there big time .
That terminal on the end of the wire looks very suspect and I can see 1 too many red wires on the battery .
JD may have used fuseable links on that model Scotts and some one has bypassed it rather than repairing it .

 

[StarTech]

Bert, Just let the guy screw up his mower.

Personally I am tire having to nearly beg for members to post their equipment info. Just because they know what they don't we are there sitting right beside them. There is 42 different models that uses that same AM38227 switch and most are wired differently.

 

[Rivets]

Settle down Star, and this time I’ll give the guy a break. In his other thread (yes this is a second thread with a little more info) but he says he is a newbie looking for help and I think he’s now learned his lesson. Yes, we’ve seen it before, but I for one am willing to try to help him. RK, if you still want help answer my questions in your other thread and we’ll go from there. I know where Star is coming from, as to often we have to ask many questions because we are not standing next to you to see the problem. Too many people think we have ESP and are also psychic, and don’t understand how a repair forum works. So let’s start over, but not with another thread.

 

[StarTech]

Yes it been one those very aggravating days. I got nothing much of what planned to do due to crazy weather. I going a couple pills to settle my headache and go to sleep.

I wish I knew there was more than one thread; although, can cause problem in itself. We all got to be on the same train.

 

[Rivets]

I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but I agree we all need to be on the same train and track to solve this one. We’ll just see what the OP wants to do, because we’re going to have to start over.

 

[StarTech]

Yes do start over. Headache easing. I went and looked at his other thread. It is an orange mower so it can be a Scotts, Sabre, Ariens, or some other model but it is definitely not JD Green.

With some crossing of model I finally found a make/break keyswitch layout for the Stens 430-110 switch (Ariens 03602300, JD AM38227) for us to work from.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I have already crankied at rklemm60 so by now he probably feels like we out to get blood
Thanks for the connection diagram
I did not respond to that bit as he said he found 2 G terminals which I was fairly sure was wrong but as I have no crosses for JD part numbers I could not check


If you are still there rklemm60,
On the diagram above
A = Alternator
B = Battery
G = Ground
M = magneto
S= Start and in this case S1 to S2
As neither of the S terminals connect to the battery then there must be a starting relay and a starting solenoid
As a general rule, JD use a consistent colour code across all of their mowers
However they like to change it between each switch
So a red wire might go red + white then red + black then back to solid red so that makes tracing unknown circuits a touch on the difficult side .

Now the big worry is they generally use white for the magneto kill wire and if that odd white wire was a magneto kill wire & you hooked the battery to it you have just blown $ 45 for new magneto and if it has a twin engine then that is times 2

Those 2 items are about the price of the technical manual so you can see that it really is worth what JD ask for it .
And before you ask, I have only 2 Scotts manuals for bought to cover the mowers my customer have and the actual wiring is different an both of them. .

 

[StarTech]

After doing the research the last 24 hrs on the switch posted here is the crosses. Note prefixes I use are usually are for the OEM of the PN.

 

[Fish]

You guys are getting cranky.