LX277 start/stop issues

[g.woerner]

2nd hand LX277, pulled it out of storage yesterday, mice made a nest under the hood and engine shroud.
Cleaned all that out and noticed a small black wire not connected to anything that comes from the wire loom under the battery into the connector by the block. Looked to no avail for the other end of it.
Pressed on, cleaned everything up and tried to start it up, as soon as I turn the key on the started engages but it wouldnt fire. Gave it a shot of ether to see if it would kick and nothing, gave up for the night!
Came out this morning and flipped the key on and it coughed to life, sputtered and died, OK good should be ok, buttoned everything up and tried again and nothing, pulled the plugs, no spark, but I had a spark 20 min earlier.
Cleaned the plugs up and put them back in, hunted around for a broken wire or anything out of place, nothing except the small black wire mentioned earlier. I had disconnected the connector at the block while I was cleaning and forgot to put it back together, turned the key and it fired right up, ran fine, left it running while I put the hood etc back on, of course the key is in the off position and it's running, noticed the connector was apart and I connected it and she dies.

Thoughts?
Bad key switch?
any idea what that black wire may be? I'll try to get a picture for clarification

Thanks in advance

 

[bertsmobile1]

Black wire is the magneto kill switch
Should be open circuit with the key in any run position and ground when the key is turned off.
Most likely your friendly rodent has chewed through the insulation some where and the wire is grounding on the engine

 

[g.woerner]

I chased around but cannot seem to find the end of the wire, where should it be connected to?

 

[bertsmobile1]

It is connected to the parking brake switch, the PTO switch , the seat switch & the key switch.
What we need to know is did the wire read open & closed circuit to ground ?
When we get that answer then we can take you through the testing proceedure .
If the wire is fine over the exposed length then it is more likely that you have a dud switch as well .

 

[g.woerner]

I'll have to check tomorrow
Here is the connector and the wire, I don't know if this went into the connector?
The exposed wire in the background goes to the oil pressure

 

[bertsmobile1]

If that is the end of the kill wire that plugs into the coils
Well yes that is your problem.
Every time the bare end of that black wire touches a metal part the coils are shorted to ground & they stop making sparks.
However on the smaller LX mowers the kill wire is white on both sides of the connector
This is why you really need to JD manual and no I am not on % of the sales.
JD wiring is done properly so it is a touch confusing particularly as they like using lots of relays.
This is good because it stops arcing at the switches so they become a lot more reliable, but it makes sorting out wiring problems a bugger if you don't have the correct wiring diagram.