Hi everybody,
Moving out of the downtown area to a 1-acre house/lot a few miles out so I thought it might be a good idea to get a lawn tractor to mow all that grass! So the neighbor says his son-in-law (farmer) has a John Deere mower he'd be willing to sell for a couple hundred bucks. I took one look at it and said "Heck Yes!" The seller says it only has one problem....it'll run for a few minutes and then just die!
So here's the deal. It's a JD F525 (have no idea what year) and when I got it home I threw a battery charger on it, filled it with gas, and she fired right up. Ran for about 3 minutes and then just died. I pulled the float bowl on the carb and there was gas in it. I pulled the fuel filter and there was gas coming out of it. I pulled the spark plug and nothing. No spark whatsoever!
Bought a new plug, put it in this morning (the mower sat overnight) and it fired right up. Ran for 5 minutes and died. Same as before, no spark at the plug. So I'm thinking I must have a short at the magneto or in the plug wire. Does that sound right? Does this thing have a magneto? Does it have a set of points? Does the plug wire screw into the magneto is it a one piece unit. By the way the engine is some big honkin' Kawasaki 17 hp unit.
Any ideas?
Moving out of the downtown area to a 1-acre house/lot a few miles out so I thought it might be a good idea to get a lawn tractor to mow all that grass! So the neighbor says his son-in-law (farmer) has a John Deere mower he'd be willing to sell for a couple hundred bucks. I took one look at it and said "Heck Yes!" The seller says it only has one problem....it'll run for a few minutes and then just die!
So here's the deal. It's a JD F525 (have no idea what year) and when I got it home I threw a battery charger on it, filled it with gas, and she fired right up. Ran for about 3 minutes and then just died. I pulled the float bowl on the carb and there was gas in it. I pulled the fuel filter and there was gas coming out of it. I pulled the spark plug and nothing. No spark whatsoever!
Bought a new plug, put it in this morning (the mower sat overnight) and it fired right up. Ran for 5 minutes and died. Same as before, no spark at the plug. So I'm thinking I must have a short at the magneto or in the plug wire. Does that sound right? Does this thing have a magneto? Does it have a set of points? Does the plug wire screw into the magneto is it a one piece unit. By the way the engine is some big honkin' Kawasaki 17 hp unit.
Any ideas?
