Ok, i'm sure im going to get some flack for this but it was out of desperation, having a get together this weekend and wanted the lawn looking good.
The fix worked for the first mow (2.5 hours worth ) so i put it away happily thinking the problem was fixed. But this morning the PTO would not engage.
After testing connections it looked like the screws were not getting a good connection anymore. So I dug deeper and got to a bigger chunk of wires and reattached everything. It worked when testing it on the battery, but not with the PTO switch... this is my moment of desperation.
I connected the PTO directly to the battery... and mowed for a short period till everything died, no power. My half a## volt meter is telling me the battery has some volts but maybe not enough??
Did I fry the battery? blow a fuse?
Sure i deserve some butt chewing over this, and will take it.
