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My parents bought a Spartan zero turn and have had repeated keypads go bad. The one that just went bad only had 35hrs on it and will be the 4th one to go out. My plan is to bypass the whole keypad but I can’t find a wiring diagram anywhere. The mower is about 8hrs away so I’d like to figure out what I need so that I can fix it hopefully for good the next time I go home. Does anyone happen to have a schematic? It is a 17 SRT with the kohler engine.

have you asked Spartan ?
Most mower companies have wiring diagrams on their web site as a free download due to the restrictive trade case ruling that they can not keep it secret .

I looked on there website but have not contacted them

Jesse18 said:

I looked on there website but have not contacted them

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Good luck with that. Spartan has the worst customer service I have ever run into of any equipment dealer. My keypad has also failed - just out of warranty. $300 for a replacement.

This is the reason I will not get a Spartan , mower looks OK but key pad issues scared me off,
If it was Me, I'd disconnect it all together, buy a regular ignition switch, choke and cable assembly, and blade engagement switch,
you will need to wire it up from there, ( be aware the warranties / safeties ) will not be in service any longer though, I've done this on a few machines for people ++

Repaced 3 already no cost just look on back of key pad contact www.gdimeters.com life time warentie

Contact Spartan and ask if they make a kit to convert to an ignition switch kit. Dixie Chopper had this problem and made a kit to conver it to key start. Have change a lot of them out.

Looks like some one could make a kit Where all that was require was to replace the switch. On D/C you have to replace the complete wiring harness.

They were a good idea, badly done
Mower electronics are not good enough to run these chips reliabily
heat, sunlight, weather, vibrations all kill them
I have done a few AYP conversions back to key
Not all that difficult and AYP gave up on them after 3 years because they were so problematic
They work in cars where the parts are not subject to weather, vibrations & have a much more stable electrical system but not on mowers

Oh yes have to replace the whole harness because the PTO switch is incoperated into the key pad. Are the other mowers like this? Not fimiliar with the others.

Bertrrr said:

This is the reason I will not get a Spartan , mower looks OK but key pad issues scared me off,
If it was Me, I'd disconnect it all together, buy a regular ignition switch, choke and cable assembly, and blade engagement switch,
you will need to wire it up from there, ( be aware the warranties / safeties ) will not be in service any longer though, I've done this on a few machines for people ++

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I've got a 2019 spartan mower that I'm looking at doing this on. What would be the steps that I'd need to take to get this working?

I think I've read on here there are conversion kits to get around this keypad garbage

When I get a dead keypad mower I just go into Jacks web site and check the wiring diagrams of previous models till I find the latest one with a real key
Not sure if Spartans were ever made with a key but as you should know there are really only 2 basic wiring layouts
1) grounds through the key
2) uses relays to turn the magneto on & off
The rest of the stuff is just the same switches and most will happily interchange
Relay & Module controlled mowers will usually have 2 prong safety switches because the module handles the switching
Manual ( dumb ) systems use 4 prong switches to separate cranking circuit from kill circuits
Not hard to rewire from scratch
Just done a Z-master from scratch as Toro wanted $ 395 for the main harness + $ 125 for the engine harness + extra for the individual switches .
From scratch there was $ 18 worth of plugs & sockets and about $ 50 worth of wire
I did have to reuse the Fuel / Hour meter plug by cutting the wires & joining them as I could not get plug and I could only get the terminals in a 1000 unit roll

lucky1 said:

Repaced 3 already no cost just look on back of key pad contact www.gdimeters.com life time warentie

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Is there a part number or stock number to ask for when contacting GDI ?

Their website does not say anything about keypads for Spartan mowers