5 year old Scag Wildcat wont start

[EddieWalker]

I have a Scag Wildcat that is about 5 years old that I bought band new from the dealer. It has the Kawasaki water cooled engine and a 61 inch deck. It's worked perfectly since buying it, but this last weekend when I went to start it, nothing. I assumed it was the battery, but after putting the charger on it, nothing happened. I then checked the voltage and the battery has 12.59 volts without the charger on it. It's not clicking, or making any sort of noise. It's like the key doesn't work, or isn't sending any power to anything.

My thought was that one of the safety switches was malfunctioning. Maybe it was stuck. There is a push in type switch at each turning arm, the parking break and the seat. I unplugged each one, cleaned the terminals and checked for continuity. When depressed, I got a good signal.

Now my head hurts trying to think of what else it could be.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[tcartwri]

any evidence of mice.

I know you checked this once already, but I did a similar thing this fall and wound up dragging the machine back to the shop. Went over everything, charged the battery and after about an hour realized that the parking brake was off.... old age I tell ya....

 

[MoKelly]

I don't have a Scag --- I have a Bad Boy --- but a very similar thing happened to me. After mowing and shutting down the unit, when I went back to start it up I got nothing. Zero. I did what you did and nothing helped.

Turned out I simply did not have the handles pushed back enough to disengage the safty stuff. Once I pushed back the handles correctly it started like normal.

Based on the symptoms, it really does seem like one of the safty things is preventing it to crank and start. Most times, its the simple stuff creating the issue.

Good luck.

MoKelly

 

[EddieWalker]

Found it. There are four sensors that have to be pushed in for it to start. I figured it was one of them because absolutely nothing happened when I turned the key and I had plenty of power at the battery. I went through all of them and they all tested good. Push in the button and I got continuity. What it turns out was happening was the handle on the right side wasn't pushing it in all the way when all the way out. I figured it out by jumping the prongs with a screw driver across both of them. When I did that, the starter worked.

I adjusted the sensor so it was closer to the handle and when the handle is in the out position, it's pushing in more of the button.

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[MoKelly]

Found it. There are four sensors that have to be pushed in for it to start. I figured it was one of them because absolutely nothing happened when I turned the key and I had plenty of power at the battery. I went through all of them and they all tested good. Push in the button and I got continuity. What it turns out was happening was the handle on the right side wasn't pushing it in all the way when all the way out. I figured it out by jumping the prongs with a screw driver across both of them. When I did that, the starter worked.

I adjusted the sensor so it was closer to the handle and when the handle is in the out position, it's pushing in more of the button.

Thank you,
Eddie

Congrats. I am old enough to long for the days before all this safety stuff was added to equipment. They seem to create headaches more often than not.

MoKelly

 

[LD1]

Glad you found it. I was gonna suggest the PTO switch. I had to replace that on mine.

I hate all them safety and have disabled all but the PTO safety on mine. Otherwise you have to run through a mental checklist every time you want to get off the darn thing to pick up a stick or piece of trash.

Arms open...check.
PArk brake set...check
Mower blades off..check

Just drove me nuts. So now I just have to kill the blades and hop off.

PS: unless they changed something, Scag has really good IPL's and wiring diagrams on their site.