Help my cub cadet will not start and I do not know why

[StarTech]

Three words of advice from someone who does auto electric troubleshooting, firing the parts cannon should not become an option. Very expensive. When checking electrical connections, do not use only a meter. The high input impedence will show the worst connection as good. Use a test light, not LED, to verify that the connection or switch is indeed good. A high resistance connection will look fine with a meter, but unable to light even the smallest light bulb. And also, start your testing with clean and tight battery connections. Again a corroded battery terminal may look good from the outside, but underneath there may be high resistance that would steer you back toward that parts cannon.

This is why I do voltage drop tests under load. The bad connection usually will read voltage across it when it should be reading near zero volts if the just a connector or contact involved.

And I had a few battery terminal connectors to be bad internally too.

 

[mrstevewayne575]

Thank you Mr Sgkent,Mr Ranchito, and the others with there great advice. I did what you said, I had 12V at Solenoid, 12v down at starter. So I started at the negative battery cable checking connections. At the first connection Cub Cadet had the negative cable wired into a connection into wiring harness. Feeling it, I was stuck by a wire, I untapped the connection and the wire fell out of the connection and onto my garage floor. I purchased a new connection, the soldered it and cramped both ends and taped around it all to weather protect it.
Started it up and it runs good, PROBLEM SOLVED, Thank you for the great advice.
Just to recap for someone else with the same problem do this:
Check battery for 12V, then check to see you have 12V to solenoid, Then check for 12V where it is bolted into started while the key is turned to start.
If that all checks out check negative connection at battery, then go down wiring harness and un-tape any bulges in the wire and check for loose connection. That is how I fixed mine.
Thank You All,
Mr. Steve

 

[sgkent]

good job. As you have discovered, sometimes it is a bad negative return path to the battery, and not always the positive supply side when things electrical die. I always start my troubleshooting at the battery posts then work outwards from there trying to find where the defect is.