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I bought a brand new battery, started my riding lawnmower 1 time. When I am putting it away, I use the fuel shutoff I put in, and let the engine run out of gas. I get side tracked and never turn the key off of run.
the engine counter put 100 hours on it.

I tried to start it today and got nothing. I jumped started it and ran it for 30 minutes, but it didn't charge enough to restart the engine.

How long do I need to run the tractor for the battery to get fully charged?
can I charge the battery by hooking jumper cables up to a car battery and leave it there for a couple hours?
how many volts should the battery be getting when the engine is running?
could I have ruined the battery?

unrelated.
I can start the tractor when I am not sitting in the seat, but if its running and I get off the seat it shuts off? is that right?

If the battery has been run dead flat from a tiny draw item like the fuel solenoid or the hour meter it can take a very long time before the battery will take any chgarge .
Automatic chargers will not recharge a battery that is totally flat
Some times old manual ones will, the ones with selectable voltage & charge rates that use actual switches.
So your new battery may have sparked its last.I have had some siting on the charger for better than a week before they start to take a charge.

As for the mower, yes that is how the safety circuits are supposed to work .

Bert is right. Mower batteries don't like to be totally discharged. If it comes back to half capacity i would be suprised. Jumping a dead battery to start mower then pulling full amps for a long period is not good for the stator or voltage regulator. If the battery is deep discharged should put it on a charger for a few hours before jump starting the mower.

I took the battery out, meter said 9 volts, I put it on a charger for a couple of hours and the volts read 12.4.
I let the battery set (no charger) A day later the volts read 12.1

I can test the alternator just like a car battery? I should be getting above 12 volts with it running?

Most auto part stores test batteries for free., you should get at least 13 volts or higher while running.

2ball said:

I took the battery out, meter said 9 volts, I put it on a charger for a couple of hours and the volts read 12.4.
I let the battery set (no charger) A day later the volts read 12.1

I can test the alternator just like a car battery? I should be getting above 12 volts with it running?

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Depends which particular alternator you have.
If it has a rectifier then just the same as a car except you also need to check the DC recharge wire to ground for AC Voltage signaling a rectifier failure
If you have the older diode system then you need to test is for forward & backward continuity

Just an FYI as well, The charging system is designed to maintain the charge in the battery, its not made too charge the battery. Especially if its 9 volts like you said. Any battery thats below 12.25 could come back to life with a slow charge kind of wakes it up so to speak. trying to charge a dead battery will lead to bigger electrical problems. Just throwing that out there.

Funny you should bring this one back to life.
Before I get too crook to work I did a house call to a EZ 225 that would not crank
Ground cable nut had fallen off & the ground wire was just touching the bolt .
Replaced the missing nut which of course was an 8 x 1.25 metric as is every other nut & bolt on the mower, and people wonder why I love these JD EZ's
Any way , none to surprising the rectifier was toast so the customer was told to charge the battery fully and only mow for 3 hours max then recharge the battery as she will be mowing total loss .
I had just waited 5 weeks for a Stens rectifier & Stator as they were out of stock because B & S was unable to supply & my other wholesaler sells genuine B & S rectifiers and neither of them had any more left .

Naturally she did this a couple of times then No 1 son jump started the mower from his car then mowed till the PTO died
Now needs a new stator , ( quoted 3 weeks ) rectifier ( which I have ) PTO clutch & Fuse box which melted .
Fuse box is $ 45 , without terminals and the terminals will be 3 weeks because nill stock in Aust ,

I cant stress enough to my customers about jumping a mower from a car. I dont know if people think I'm feeding them a line or what but Its explained thoroughly enough about that. I had one this year like that, The best is when they lie and say I didnt jump it with a car, some dont realize that im the guy that takes guy taking it apart and I will obviously see what happened. All a part of having your own business I guess

BriggsMST said:

I cant stress enough to my customers about jumping a mower from a car. I dont know if people think I'm feeding them a line or what but Its explained thoroughly enough about that. I had one this year like that, The best is when they lie and say I didnt jump it with a car, some dont realize that im the guy that takes guy taking it apart and I will obviously see what happened. All a part of having your own business I guess

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You hand them a fried stator and regulator?

yep...... thats about the size of it. And I have done that, Its like my silent dig, dont have too say, see I told ya

Back when we didn't have electric PTO clufches and lower output alternators you could get away with jumping and running but not today.

Should have thought of that
I do keep a few common dead parts on hand to explain to customers HOW they killed their mower.
The one that always has heir eyes popping is the briggs crankcase with the top cut cut off & oil slinger glued into place so they can see just how little slope compromises the oil supply .
Got a couple of latter ones to show when the pick up screen for the pump is pumping air but not gotten around to sorting it out .
Keep a couple of worn out pulleys to show belt running on the root of the V and a vari drive pully to show whay a std B section belt is not a good idea
But I have always tossed away burned up stators

I always show the old parts, 9 times out of 10 the customer dont even know what they are looking at. Belts is a no brainer for people, But in most cases they have that deer in the headlights look while I explain the function of the part and why it failed. The best customers are the ones that say fix it what ever it needs just fix it. I wish they were all like that. Im sure everyone of you will agree with me.

When the ask what was wrong and i am in a mood i say " Do you want the War and Peace version or the Reader's Digest version?" Nobody has asked for the long version and " I fixed it" usually suffices.

its even better when someone tells you how to do it, my reply is well then why did you bring it here, fix it yourself. I dont have to be in a mood at all, but that sets me right off. 0 to a**hole in .002 sec

You need one of THESE.

BriggsMST said:

I cant stress enough to my customers about jumping a mower from a car. I dont know if people think I'm feeding them a line or what but Its explained thoroughly enough about that. I had one this year like that, The best is when they lie and say I didnt jump it with a car, some dont realize that im the guy that takes guy taking it apart and I will obviously see what happened. All a part of having your own business I guess

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Oh really? Care to explain what the problem with that is? I thought 12 volts was 12 volts. I recently recommended that someone who I suspected had a bad mower battery jump from their vehicle battery directly to their mower battery cables using jumper cables, eliminating their mower battery. Should I go find and delete that post?

Darryl G said:

Oh really? Care to explain what the problem with that is? I thought 12 volts was 12 volts. I recently recommended that someone who I suspected had a bad mower battery jump from their vehicle battery directly to their mower battery cables using jumper cables, eliminating their mower battery. Should I go find and delete that post?

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Darryl G said:

Oh really? Care to explain what the problem with that is? I thought 12 volts was 12 volts. I recently recommended that someone who I suspected had a bad mower battery jump from their vehicle battery directly to their mower battery cables using jumper cables, eliminating their mower battery. Should I go find and delete that post?

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Someone please correct me if 'm wrong, I think it's mostly applied to mowers with an electric PTO clutch, dead battery, jump it off, stator tries to charge dead battery while the battery is trying to supply power to the PTO clutch = toasted stator.

Scrubcadet10 said:

Someone please correct me if 'm wrong, I think it's mostly applied to mowers with an electric PTO clutch, dead battery, jump it off, stator tries to charge dead battery while the battery is trying to supply power to the PTO clutch = toasted stator.

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Thanks. Sounds like what I recommended wouldn't be an issue then.

Darryl G said:

Oh really? Care to explain what the problem with that is? I thought 12 volts was 12 volts. I recently recommended that someone who I suspected had a bad mower battery jump from their vehicle battery directly to their mower battery cables using jumper cables, eliminating their mower battery. Should I go find and delete that post?

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Darryl
Nothing wrong per say with STARTING using jumper leads
The problem is RUNNING with a flat battery or failed charging system
So if the battery has just self discharged, fine , go mow, after you have let it sit running full speed for 15 minutes or so to get some power back into the battery .

It also depends upon the mower
Less of a problem with an MTD Vari Drive with manual PTO
Big problems with anything with an electric clutch
The stator sits under the flywheel where it gets no cooling what soever
So when running at full power for several hours physically burns out
I have replaced at least a dozen stators that are actually charred and burned to a crisp.

They are not designed to run at full power for more than a few minutes