Can I find a replacement battery online? Bought my Z125S back in fall of 2015 from a dealer. Dealers are closed on the weekend and wife is paranoid about the virus and me going into stores when they open Monday.
Tried to start zero turn this morning and just got rapid clicking. Seemed to die down too. Did some research online. I found some people with the same issue and replacing the battery resolved the issue.
Many stores have curb side pickup. Just get one that has a mind of 350 CCA, and tell them orientation of the posts, so you get the correct one to install.
I went and got the battery tested. They said I should just be able to charge it. I also read I could jump it with my car. My wife's father said he had done that before with success. I was going to try that, but when I went to attach the negative clamp to the frame of the mower (attached in correct order, mower positive, car positive, car negative, mower frame negative) I got sparks on from the negative clamp. Any ideas why that might be?
Little sparks is not a problem. If the battery of the mower is empty you wil always get sparks when connecting the cabele's. (Your car is charging the mower battery) Assuming your car is running a 12 volt battery there should'nt be a problem. If you have big sparks (like welding) there might be something wrong. Did you connect the battery the right way?
If the car was not running when you connected the jumper cables and the key was off on the tractor, you should have very little if any sparks. Sparks indicated that something was drawing current when you connected the cables. This would also indicate that something is drawing your battery down when the unit is not in use.
I had the samething happen to my old Z121S, ended up just replacing the battery with one from tractor supply. Asked dealer about it and they said not unusual if its sitting for a period of time without a battery tender on it. Will be purchasing me a tender for my new ZG227 when winter rolls around.
very common for batteries to be deader'n a hammer after sitting all winter
parts stores have them, make sure to get the highest cca battery they have-especially on Kohler powered stuff. Kohler uses direct drive starters and no compression release so they need all the amps they can get. Normally 340-450ca is fine. Also on the kohler's it's wise to do a valve adjustment once in a while; they start & run better with properly adjusted valve clearance. When the clearance loosens up even just a little the compression pressure rises quickly and causes them to become harder to start. Seen plenty of broken starter armature shafts on the V-twins (SV840's especially) because of it. Kohler is building the starters with a larger diameter shaft now, as well as about 40% more torque to help with the issue. Aftermarket starters are just OE replacements, small shaft, low torque....so if you have to replace a starter, get it from Kohler (or Kubota) as it is a much better design now.
Batteries DO NOT self-discharge over winter, unless you leave them connected to the electrical system. It's the connection of the electrical system that allows the fast bleed-down. If you had simply taken one of the terminals off the battery last fall, then you'd be in a much better position now.
Jumping the mower from a car can be done, but there are numerous ways to screw up and burn out other electrical devices in the car AND/OR mower. Once the mower is started you'll need to run it several hours to get the mower's battery charged. Charging a battery is not an instantaneous proposition. So you'll need to have enough fresh fuel on hand to make that happen.
Unless you fit a sealed pressure valve regulated battery that prevents hydrogen evolution on the plates all lead acid batteries self discharge over time as the plate compounds attempt to get to their lowest energy state, which is dead flat electrically .
And this happens just sitting on the shelf waiting to be sold let alone being connected to anything .
Then there is phantom drai from things like regulators that draw a tiny amount of current all the time, to hour meters to stupid things like moisture on the battery terminals completing a circuit,
moisture o the solenoid power cable allowing a ground leakage etc etc etc .
This is why infrequent use engines should always have a PVR battery
Andbecause mowers vibrate a lot and have no suspension or cushioning for the battery they should also be of the Adsorbent Glass Matt construction to give the battery plates more support.
Finally to prevent resonant vibrations fatiguing the plates or shaking the paste off the plates, the plates should be spiral wound.
Now the down side is a spiral wound AGM PVR battery is 3 times the price of a junk battery so no mower factories fit them AFAIK .
We used them exclusevly in the cars, vans & motorcycles owned b our delivery business and never had a battery failure n over 30 years
Some of the batteries ran the whole 30 years and what really blew my mind was one or the Rollers had been sitting for over 3 years while we were doing some body work .
It cranked fine & started when we needed to move it .
#11
Hammermechanicman
Bought my Z125S back in fall of 2015 from a dealer.
Tried to start zero turn this morning and just got rapid clicking.
You got 5 years out of the battery and that is normal. It just needs a new battery. When you store it off season using a $9 Harbor Freight battery maintainer float charger will help the battery last longer.
The first spiral cell battery was bought 1988.
I was doing our second wedding and the battery would not charge so we jumped the car from the other one & I went to the nearest auto electrician.
The biggest battery he had that fitted into the battery box was an Optima spiral cell which cost over $ 600 which was more then we were charging for the car in those days.
That battery did at least 19 starts plus ran the car's full electrical load as we found hegenerator regulaor was toast the following week.
However it performed so well when we next needed a battery we bought another then went over to them completely
The bikes got Cyclons because they were the only spiral cells in that size.
Usually 2 6V in series .
I still have two of the original Cyclons fitted into my vintage bikes and one of the very early Optimas is in the 24V pack to start the fork lift .
