possible battery issue on 2166
 

Hello,
I have a cub cadet 2166 i purchased used from a guy at work. The mower worked fine when I tested it at his place before buying, and at my place on delivery. A day or so later I had issues with the PTO not wanting to engage all the time. Now, the mower will not start, not even crank or turn over. I am thinking this is a battery issue. From what I read the battery can cause both problems.

I used a multimeter to check the battery, sitting cold it read around 12v. When I turned the key to the crank position the voltage dropped to less than 2 v. I am not the most mechanically inclined, but I can usually get buy with a decent set of instructions or a youtube video.

Does this sound like a good place to start, by replacing the battery? Any assistance would be appreciated. The guy offered to buy mower back from me, but I cannot afford a new riding mower. I am hoping this one is not more of a hassle than it is worth.

Any help is greatly appreciated

How old is the battery?

Unknown on age of the battery. I contacted the seller, waiting to hear back from him on how old it is.

Battery should have a date on it someplace.

Two volts!?? :bigeyes:

Replace.

I did not see a date on battery, but seller told me it was only a few months old. I took it to autozone, not even enough charge to run their tester. They charged it and it checked out just fine and is holding charge well.

I put the battery back in my 2166 and it cranked up even better than before, and the pto engaged every time I tried it. (there does seem to be a power drain when pto engages, you can tell easily, but once blades are going everything returns to normal, is this normal? I don't remember my old murray doing this....but it did not have a pto clutch, just a manual lever to engage pully).

Anyways, I was thinking maybe an alternator then, if battery is not bad, maybe it is not getting charged from alternator/powering things in place of alternator if it is bad. So I got the engine running and disconnected one of the leads from the battery and engine stopped instantly. I know on cars this is a dead give away for a bad alternator. Does the same apply here? If so, any advice/links for a walkthrough on replacing the alternator?

Am I getting in over my head, or is this one man doable? lol

Apologies that I could not reply back yesterday, and MANY thanks for your insight and advice.

Check the battery voltage before starting and while running you should have around 12 before starting and around 14-15 running wide open without the PTO turned on.

Just checked, and it is holding ~12 before starting. After starting with throttle wide open it seemed to average in the 13-15 range, dropping as low as 10 and as high as 17.

Probably OK then, happy mowing.:beerchug:

That is cautiously good news..... lol. So it is normal for mower engine to die when I disconnect a lead from battery while running? Not meaning to doubt you...I just do NOT trust my luck to make it that easy lol.

The 2166 has a fuel shut off solenoid the needs power to run and it may have a Spark Advance Module that also needs power so unless you had it wide open when you unhooked the battery I would guess it would shut off.

Ok, after getting the battery charged at Autozone, we finally had a decent weather day. Mower ran fine till it ran out of gas (about 45mins runtime). I stopped for a phone call about 20 mins or so after that. When I went to start, the motor would barely crank at all, and then went to nothing, no turn over, nothing. It has been raining since, so I have not had a chance to check battery again. I am assuming battery is dead again though, since engine would not even turn over, after it barely cranking just before that. Does this mean alternator, or is there another possible cause?

Sounds like you have one of two issues, 1 it's not charging or 2 you have something drawing more juice than the alternator can produce. Time to get out the meter and find out what the problem is.