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Hey All,

Running into what seems like an unsolvable electrical issue for our mower.

It’s a Husqvarna YTH24K48, and it’s had a very hard previous life.

For a little bit of history, the mower was left to us by the previous owner of our house, which we were incredibly grateful for, but it didn’t come with out its flaws. I have been chasing issue after issue to try and work out the kinks.

When I acquired the mower, I knew that it burned oil on start up, it was leaking from one of the valve covers. To resolve this I did the following:
New head gaskets
Adjusted the valve timing
New valve covers
All new hard ware
All new gaskets
Oil, spark plugs, air filter, blades

The mower fired up great after this, ran much smoother and hasn’t burned / spilled a drop of oil since.

I then began to have an electrical issue. When I would engage the blade it would stall the mower out. And the only remedy was to jump the mower using a power pack. I ended up replacing the battery and the issue went away, but now 2 months later I am experiencing the same issue.

I’ve had a volt meter hooked up the to unit, and the mower is replenishing the battery, but once I shut it off, or engage the blades, the mower is dead, and needs an external power source to start back up.

I’ve included a few videos. Any thoughts on what could be killing the battery?

Model Specs:
Husqvarna YTH24K48
Kohler Courage SV725-3027

This is the mower going from a running state, turning off with the key, and trying to restart it only using the mowers battery. ( I have left a volt meter hooked up to show the surge in power loss to the battery, but as you can see in the other videos the battery takes charge once it has turned over) battery is 2 months old.

filing this video was the first time I have ever had to struggle like this to turn over, and I have never had to fight this hard to idle.

9/10 times this is how it fires up from the jump pack

A couple of thoughts
1) check the rectifier to make sure it is working an only sending DC to the battery
If it is pumping AC that will kill a battery very fast
2) check your battery cables and in particular the ground cable

bertsmobile1 said:

A couple of thoughts
1) check the rectifier to make sure it is working an only sending DC to the battery
If it is pumping AC that will kill a battery very fast
2) check your battery cables and in particular the ground cable

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I will give the rectifier a test in the morning, and see what the results are (and post them back here) as for the battery cables, they all appear tore solid. I added a battery tender hard wired connector to the battery. so it was hooked up to that tonight. Oddly enough, within moments of connecting it to the battery tender, the battery was already registering being at an > 80% Charge.

A couple things to check. For the hard starting and poor idle check to see if you have regular ignition coils or a DSAI system. Remove the shroud and look at the coils. Do they have 1 wire or 2? If the coils have the 2 wire connector it is a DSAI system and you need 12 volts at the coils to start. Those systems are notorious for failing. Sometimes the power runs through a relay and a bad relay can cause no start/hard start problem. If you have the DSAI system consider replacing it with a kit to convert to regular coils.
As said, check and clean connection at both ends of battery cables. Check output of regulator. Kohlers are bad for a little corrosion on regulator terminals causing over heated and melted connector.

So this morning I tried firing up from the battery after it spent the night on the trickle charger and was at 100%. It just cranked slightly, and began to click, so i think this battery might be toast at this point (I’ll go have took the engine cover off and addressed a handful of things including, removing the battery and cleaning all of the connectors (terminals, ground points, starter). I did find a dead mouse under the fan shroud (I’ve pulled quite a few mice nests out of the mower this season) testing the power in from the stator and output of the voltage regulator.

numbers seem to be within an acceptable range.

Stator Output:

Voltage Regulator Output:

There was a small ground wire attached underneath the carb intake which could be pulled out of the sleeve. I remove it and wired up a new eyelet for it, but I think it was still previously making a connection.

on the ignition coils, I have a single wire coming out of one of them, and a split wire coming out of the other. (One of the Wires leading between the two coils had a slightly frayed wire casing. How can I test for 12v at the coil? Do I need a spark plug tester?

If you have only one wire to the coils you have the conventional coils and not a DSAI system you should have no voltage on the wires. They are ground to kill. When you turn the key off it grounds the wire to kill the ignition.

The trouble with the computer age is people get convinced that it is the number that is important and not what the number is showing.
Get a pair of jumpers
Put one to ground near he starter & the other to the + terminal on the starter motor
Connect then to the battery
Starter spins & cranks the engine = battery is good & wiring is bad
Starter spins weakly & can not crank the engine = duff battery

I ended up changing out the battery today, when they got it on the tester it was toast. (Glad I did because it was 1 day out of the 90 day warranty) thankfully I was able to get it covered. With a new battery it fires up just fine, but imagine as a month or two goes by I will see it showcasing the same symptoms.

bertsmobile1 said:

The trouble with the computer age is people get convinced that it is the number that is important and not what the number is showing.
Get a pair of jumpers
Put one to ground near he starter & the other to the + terminal on the starter motor
Connect then to the battery
Starter spins & cranks the engine = battery is good & wiring is bad
Starter spins weakly & can not crank the engine = duff battery

Click to expand...

that’s a great test, I’ll keep that in mind for when I pull it back out this weekend.With the new battery installed it fires up just fine, but there is that something killed the last new battery in less than 3 months

Set your meter to read AC volts and then check the battery terminals with the engine running full speed
If you see AC Volta at the battery the rectifier has become rectifried .

Fires up like a champ with the new battery, so i hope to keep this one running. I changed out the rectifier this afternoon (replacement part came in) need to check if my budget voltmeter is working properly because it seemed like I was get the same reading of 29 volts AC at the battery both before and after installing the new part with my current harbor freight unit, which I’m guessing is incorrect. But I ordered a new voltmeter which should be here tomorrow.