Electrical Issues no juice to start

[jwashburn]

I have Cub Cadet with the Kohler SV471 Engine that stopped working between when I used it last week and today after parking it. There is nothing at the ignition. The hour meter does not come on either. At first I thought maybe I left the key on, but my neighbor checked the battery with a volt meter and its coming back at 11.7. So I "THINK" I am okay there. The positive terminal did have some gunk, so I got that cleaned off. No change. I have bought a 12v test light presuming it would be a magic bullet and save the day, but alas I must not be smart enough to use it properly. Another piece of information that may be helpful is about 3 years ago the seat switch went out, I replaced it, still didnt work so I jumped wire and its been working ever since. Even when the seat switch wasn't working I would at least see the hour gauge register when the key was on and I could hear the system turn on.

I have replaced the fuse on the positive terminal a couple of times, I dont think that is it. Looking at them, they look ok. This is where I have reached my skillset limit. My test light is one of the new computer safe LED jobs. It has a red and black lead. I attached the red lead to the red terminal and tried poking the back of the fuse and it did not seem to light. It is hard to see the LED in the daylight so I cant be sure it was not on. BUT if its not lighting up, would this lead you to believe battery? Since the fuse is only a couple of inches away from the battery terminal it does seem like if there is no power there, then the problem would be with the battery?

Any assistance is appreciated. Starting to go down wiring diagram rabbit holes.

 

[ILENGINE]

11.7 volts is low for the battery, should be closer to 12.5-12.7. What voltage do you get if you test the battery while trying to start. Does it drop any at all or drop to 0 volts indicating a bad battery.

 

[jwashburn]

Thanks for the response. I just kept moving up the line towards the ignition testing at each switch and found that some critters chewed through the last mile of wires right before the switch

 

[ILENGINE]

Thanks for letting us know what the issue was. Time to install cat it appears.