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Greetings Everyone,

I have a 1996 Murray 42 inch riding mower that belonged to my girlfriends father. It sat for a few years and this past spring I got it working. It worked great over the summer. But the last couple of times I used it, it was hard to start. I would turn the key and nothing would happen at all. No sound, no turn over. Nothing. But I would wait a minute or two, try again and it would start and run fine. I replaced the steering gear this past weekend, and afterwards it was extremely hard to start. Then it stopped starting at all. I had the battery checked, replaced the solenoid, replaced the key switch, and cleaned all the safety switches. Still nothing. If I jump the solenoid, the starter turns over.

I don't have the knowledge or tools to check the wiring. Before I take it to a repair place, I thought I'd post here. Is there something obvious that I missed? Any comments will be greatly appreciated!

You may need to break out the multimeter, which are cheap if you don't have one. Test the continuity of all the safety switches, as well as making sure that all connections are tight. I would say you either have a bad safety switch, or a loose connection at one of the switches. There should be a switch on the clutch as well as the pto. the seat switch on Murray won't prevent turning over the engine, but I have seen some that wouldn't fire the spark plug unless the seat switch was depressed.

Hey thanks so much! I'm going out to buy a multimeter in the morning. I did find the safety switch on the clutch. With the seat switch, and blade disengage switch, I found two more for a total of five, unless I am mistaking another connection for a safety switch. How do you replace the switches? They seem to be part of the wires, I don't see any release catch.

Man, and I thought that replacing the steering assembly was bad.....

I bought a continuity tester, and when I put the clip on one prong of the safety switch, and the metal tip on the other nothing happens. When they are on the same prong, the lamp in the tester will glow. Does this mean the switch is bad, or that I'm doing something wrong?

yeah, you need to read "through" the switch for current. Put the leads on both terminals, and take readings with or without the button pushed...

Sounds like your first place to start is cleaning up the battery cables at the battery, and the frame/solenoid, and retightening.

Those safety switches that are both for the cranking circuit and the safety shut down circuit are dual function switches. They look to have 4 wires . Don't let that confuse you. That's actually only 2 broken wires and the switch is there to connect them one pair at a time. i.e. when the button is pushed one side of the switch connects 2 of the wires and when the button is released the other two wires circuit is completed. Switches that appear to have 2 wires are single function switches either for the cranking circuit or safety shut down circuit. Use the wire colors to your advantage.

Rather than buying switches etc. you need to obtain a wiring schematic and your test light will work just fine to check switch continuity after you sort out which is the cranking circuit and which is the shut down circuit. The schematic is a must for those people that don't work on these things for a living. Even then they need to refer to them on occasion.

check the battery cables clean the ends of them and see what happens ...if its not that i would put money on the starter just my thought tho

" If I jump the solenoid, the starter turns over. "
This part of your post makes it sound like you may have a bad ground connection. Although you can check this with a continuity checker, it would be a good idea if you had a multimeter to check it with. With the engine off and the key removed, place one lead of your continuity checker on the side of the solenoid that's not connected to the battery, and the other on the engine block. You should get a "reading" (tone or light lighting). Try to move the starter in any direction and see if the connection "breaks". You may need to run a separate ground wire.