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Recently bought a John Deere L100 riging mower used from a local individual. It was fairly inexpensive and the owner stated it had been sitting for a year and needed maintenance.

i cheaned the fuel out, changed the oil, air filter and spark plug. Turned the key and nothing. Checked the safety cutouts-and still nothing. I did some minor testing as I’m Not a mechanic and found the engine turn over if I direct connect the battery and starter but beyond that I’m kinda lost. Any thoughts ?

Hi Ww,
So far you did...quite impressive. Now, the not-so-hard work starts! So, so far, you've used a jump cable from battery '+' direct to one of the copper starter terminals and she barked but no cigar?

Jack17 said:

Hi Ww,
So far you did...quite impressive. Now, the not-so-hard work starts! So, so far, you've used a jump cable from battery '+' direct to one of the copper starter terminals and she barked but no cigar?

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Correct, I’ve been able to get it to respond with direct wire to starter or to the starter terminal on the soliniod. Twice it kicked with the key briefly so I’m baffled. The seat switch is closed, the brake is on… ill retry jumping it tomorrow.

Wbward said:

Correct, I’ve been able to get it to respond with direct wire to starter or to the starter terminal on the soliniod. Twice it kicked with the key briefly so I’m baffled. The seat switch is closed, the brake is on… ill retry jumping it tomorrow.

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Sounds like a bad ground to the starter solenoid or a bad solenoid. Without good ground not enough electrical energy flows from the battery to trigger the magnetic switch to give the starter motor its full dose. Some solenoids have a separate grounding wire and some just ground to the chassis. If your solenoid has three connectors, then you have a grounding wire. If so, take it off its post and clean the connections. Also clean the connection to ground from the negative battery post. If you have a two post solenoid, it grounds to the chassis. Take the solenoid off and clean the mating surfaces. I used to have a Troybilt that I had to clean the mating surfaces on every Fall when I took it out for leaf pick up duty. Corrosion happens.

Well this will help some but you need to test the electric path to see where the failure is. If checking for voltage along the purple and purple white wire the ignition switch need to be held in the start position. Another thing to try to see if the starter solenoid itself has failed is to jumper the battery side to the small terminal with the purple wire. Also make sure the small terminal black wire is grounded. If the problem is before the solenoid the engine should crank but not start as long as no one is on the seat.

Have you checked to see if you are getting 12vdc to your start solenoid when the key is turned to start? If not you have a bad ignition switch or wiring issue, if you are getting voltage to solenoid and it is engaging you have bad contacts in the solenoid.

Check the purple or red white on the key switch for corrosion and tightness. Could also be a key switch that's going bad. I've had this happen to me.

DIFDF4 said:

Check the purple or red white on the key switch for corrosion and tightness. Could also be a key switch that's going bad. I've had this happen to me.

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I meant red wire from the battery, not red white.

My money is on the starter solenoid. I've had to replace one on every Deere I've owned. $12 on Amazon.

Well, from experience if you use that Amazon solenoid, you WILL be replacing it every year (IF you're lucky). I gave up many years ago buying ANY electrical devices from Amazon. It's all straight from mainland china with the expected quality control.

That said, these days genuine Briggs parts aren't much better, but that's the world we live in today. But they are better.

Smithsonite said:

Well, from experience if you use that Amazon solenoid, you WILL be replacing it every year (IF you're lucky). I gave up many years ago buying ANY electrical devices from Amazon. It's all straight from mainland china with the expected quality control.

That said, these days genuine Briggs parts aren't much better, but that's the world we live in today. But they are better.

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The last one I replaced was oem on my 3 year old X350 with 50 hours on it. So I'm not crazy about the quality of the oem solenoids. I replaced one on my STX with an oem. That one wasn't much better for longevity. For half the price I'll take my chances.

So it turns over but does not start with the jumper to the exciter tab of the solenoid?

Does the starter motor turn as long as you keep a jumper on the solenoid?

If so then you may need a switch instead of a solenoid, OR just to clean all of the teminals on the back of the switch and put HiD grease on them.