Test Ignition Coil Pack on Zero Turn Mower - Kawasaki Engine
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- I noticed that my zero turn mower was bogging down when I would engage the blades, to the point where it would almost stall, if i would drive forward with the blades engaged. It seemed like the engine is running really weak to the point that it felt like only one cylinder was firing instead of both. With a little research online I found out that it is not uncommon for the ignition coil packs to go bad on Kawasaki Engines when they get older. This video shows a way to test the ignition coil packs (also called coil packs) on a small engine like my Bobcat Zero Turn Mower with a Kawasaki engine, without using any special equipment. This method works on engines with two cylinders. I want to extend a special thanks to my brother for helping with the content of this video.
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Yes! This totally did the trick for me. I was thinking I had a governor or carb problem. Never thought that I could run on one cylinder like you demonstrated. Was able to isolate the problem quickly. Before disassembly I did the additional step of swapping the plugs from side to side to see if it was a defective spark plug (almost never happens). Once that confirmed the plugs were good there was only one thing to check. Got the engine cover off and saw the problem right away. The insulation on the right cylinder spark plug wire on my Kawasaki FG641V was worn through where it makes contact with the intake manifold. Bad design as the wire is too short to be routed away from a heat source, as well as a ground. Turns out it was shorting there. Confirmed with some electrical tape and that baby is humming. Ordered new coils and will be putting them in before the grass is up to my knees! Thanks again for your post.
It sounds like you made a really good sequence of steps to eliminate possible problems until you isolated it. I generally tell people to start with the simple and least expensive and least time consuming steps first and then work towards the more complicated and expensive after, until you solve it. The RUclips world has experienced and made a video on nearly everything you can imagine. It’s a free and incredible source of information. Glad it was helpful. Great job.
@@ReichpoloTech Thank you. I forgot to mention that it finally dawned on me that this was also one of the keys to eliminating the carb as the problem. If it was a carb problem it would run equally crappy when pulling either plug...definitely not the case with a bad coil! Thrilled I won't be dumping a ton of $. I've had this mower 17 years and only 800 on the PTO.....Just got it broken in!
Great video and I always appreciate the tips.. after watching I dug into my brush mower. It was overheating and would quit running. I was going to replace the coils. After taking fine grit sandpaper to the negative tab on the coil and shining it back up it fixed the issue. I was pleasantly surprised. Thanks for getting me started in the right direction.
You're welcome. Glad to help.
Exactly what I was looking for and what I did for my engine. Next step- change the coil. Grat videos!
Glad it helped.
This video helped me out a lot. Here I thought it was from me cleaning the carb and not putting something back together correctly. Now I have a clean carb and a new ignition coil. Thanks again!
Glad it helped
Thank you for your comments. I really do appreciate it.
After watching. Did the same with my 72" Hustler. Replaced the faulty coil and back to mowing effortlessly. Thanks for your video. (Saved me alot of money)
I’m glad it was helpful
This was very helpful!! Thank you!!
You're welcome. Glad I could help.
Kawasaki fr691-v 2020. Used your tips by removing plug wires while running. Dead right cylinder. Replaced coil with OEM part. Mover back 100%! Thanks
Glad it helped
Great Job! Simple diagnose! Save Time and Money!
Glad it helped.
My Ztrak 925a would run fine for 20 to 50 minutes, then lose lots of power. I replaced the 2 magneto coil assemblies and that fixed that problem.
That's great. Glad to hear it.
Thank you my friend
Glad to help.
Great tip. Thanks. The first one I pulled was the good one. I thought I felt a little shock, but I wasn't sure. So I did it again. As I pulled the cover off the plug my hand hit the frame. Yep... I got shocked. Be careful.
Yeah its probably not a bad idea to wear work gloves.
@@ReichpoloTech Did my zero turn too weeks ago. Your video was great. Thanks.
I wore gloves, first plug check was OK, the second one LIT ME UP! Even with gloves on, dang, that was like 45 pulses of elec in 2 seconds!
Very interesting. I have a possible similar issue with my John Deere Z445 mower and I was going to go after the cleaning the carburetor or replacing it, but now I am going to see about the ignition coil. I will take a video of trying to engage the mower and how it bogs down and post.
Good luck with it. Thanks for checking out the video.
I have an older Lesco Walk Behind 48”. It’s a 15 HP. And Pull Start. And it seems to run perfectly at idol. But when I go and engage the blades it will run for a little then the RPM start to lower and eventually stalling out. Could that be my issue? I bought the mower used, but looks like the previous guy put in Chinese Plugs.
I put on a new fuel line, shut off valve, and filter. I also adjusted the coils themselves to I believe 0.008 thousands. But this is all before it started to stall when blades were engaged. I work at Advance Auto Parts and bought 2 new plugs and I’m gonna put them in tomorrow.
What could your thoughts be? Thanks for all the help in advance. Big Jim Chardon Ohio
Good video! What is the gap if I am using a filler gage?
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Took me quite awhile to find this video, but this one and you other one showing business card thickness spacing were pretty helpful for me. Thanks for the video, my issue seems to be quite intermittent. I put new plugs in and I tested both coils which read the same on all 3 readings. I thought it was a coil, but perhaps not. After installed them again so far I haven't had the issue but I will do some more testing and keep all this info in the front of my brain for diagnosing if it happens again.
Exact problem I had with my Kawasaki 25HP , it would mow fine for a while but when it heated up the coil would start breaking down and start skipping when I engaged the blades. After isolating the left coil as bad I decided to change both coils.
Yeah changing both coils is not a bad idea. The other one may have last for years or days, but changing both will give you piece of mind that you should be good for a while. Thanks for the comments.
Exactly what mine is doing now. Runs for an hour great, then the coil starts to break down and gets intermittent. New coils are on there way. I pulled the one plug wire and it killed the motor. Hope that's it. If not, it's going to take some time to figure it out.
So I tried pretty much everything I was able to find in your videos. I have a Kawasaki FR730 on a zero turn. It seemed to be giving me “dirty carburetor” trouble. I say this because every time I used carburetor cleaner I was able to cut two acres of grass. I refuel every month and use stabilizer. I decided it was easier to replace the carburetor than take it apart and clean it so I bought one on Amazon that brings fuel pump and air filter. I replace it and it bogs down if I increase the throttle too fast or when I put a load on it. I check if both cylinders were firing, I changed the sparks, oil and tightened the springs that go to the governor. It starts and gets to full throttle if I increase it very slowly. Once there it starts to misfire and eventually die out. Not sure what to do.
I tried this with my Scag this morning and when I pulled the boot off the plug, it died on both sides. It starts and runs fine. When I pull the pto up to engage it dies out. I can restart the mowers and engage the pto at half throttle and then ramp it up and I can mow as long as I don’t disengage the pto. Could the coils both be a little worn out and not able to pull all the juice from full throttle?? What else could be going on with my Scag?
Mine is odd, one wire to coil which grounds them to kill engine, last one wasn’t firing, so I replaced coil, still same problem, I figured out if I unplugged the one wire to that coil it ran perfect? Makes no sence? Both are wired to the exact same wire, but if I unplug both it runs great, if I plug in just one it runs great also, if I plug in both it bogs? Any help greatly appreciated
very good troubleshooting method.
now lets add some complexity to a problem> Lets say the engine is running poorly...surging and rough idle...at this happens all the way from idle through the RPM range to full throttle?
AND lets say you remove spark plug wire LEFT...and the engine surge no longer happens. It's idles smoothly..AND you reconnect the spark plug wire left and surge continues? So you move over to spark plug wire RIGHT and remove that (with LEFT spark plug wire connected), and the surge ALSO no longer happens.
In this scenario what could be happening is that one or both of the coil's internal "back talk diodes" are bad. Some people call these the Kill switch wires. On my kawasaki FR691V these are black wires with spade connectors (female) that connect to each of the two coils and then are connected together and this circuit goes back to the ignition switch...specifically the OFF switch position of the ignition switch. The Idea is that the ignition switch turned to OFF, causes the coils to no longer produce spark energy to the spark plugs. But if one or both of the internal coil "talk back diodes" are bad, or are going bad...then you can have a condition where the engine runs poorly, rough, and with a surging governor with or without a loud...but will smooth out when you remove one OR THE OTHER coil spark plug wire!
so here is the test question for advanced troubleshooting: how do you determine and test which (or both) coil internal talk back diodes are bad...or the circuits of that kill switch system is bad?
bonus points for step by step instructions...extra bonus fo a video.
extra extra bonus points for doing this troubleshoot without a meter or spark plug test set!
God Bless America
Is it the alternator?
I'd like to point out that my cylinder kept running after unplugging the spark plug, but It caused backfiring, which is also a sign of a bad ignition coil.
I have the same mower, I can cut for about a hr then the mower just shuts off. I have to jump the brand new battery and it will start but the blades won't kick on, not enough juice. I then have to charge the battery and cut some more grass. Do you have any advice ?
It sounds to me like you may have a parasitic drain on your battery. Do you have any aftermarket stuff on your mower, like a led lightbar, or a fan, etc.? If you do, you may want to make sure you have a toggle switch turned off or install one if you don't have one for those things. Another thing that could be the issue is the generator on the mower. The generator is essentially the same thing as an alternator on a car or truck. It charges the battery as the mower runs. Lastly, it could be that the battery has some bad cells and won't accept full capacity. You should be able to read 12.0 to 12.7 volts on the battery when fully charged and not running. These are the first things that I would check, if I had it in front of me. Good luck with it. I hope this helps.
What about a mower that is turning over very well smells like gas but after cranking a while the motor runs fine I recently replaced the stator battery an regulator due to mower not charging at all after I replaced it now it seems to crank an crank an crack till it finally turns over enough it finally runs
I know this seems silly, but check your choke cable. I had mine come off the motor side once. Causing me to make this video. ruclips.net/video/8suODVy1PDY/видео.html
What if the condition continues after the ignition coil is replaced? What is the next step to determine the problem?
That is hard to determine without the machine in front of me. You need the proper mix of fuel, spark, and air for it to run right. I would start with the easy stuff. Check air filter, check fuel filter, if its on a zero turn check the battery voltage, check your throttle cable to make sure it didn't slip or stretch, check spark plug gap, check to make sure a mouse didn't chew threw any wiring. Just some off the top of my head.
Some 2 cylinder engines have 2 barrel carbs with 2 separate jets for each cylinder if One jet is clogged it can cause it to run in one cylinder
Thanks for the tips but brother your fuel pump bracket is either broken or lose as hell! It should be solid as a rock on these kawasakis. Surprised it's not pulling the vacuum line off. Best of luck!
Hey thanks for the checking out the video and glad it was helpful. I checked my fuel pump bracket and everything is solid as a rock on there. I took a look at the video to see what you may have been talking about, and I have come to conclusion that the bracket or the fuel pump are not loose. I did video stabilization on this video prior to uploading it, and I believe that you are seeing a slight glitch in that effect. The video is a little wavy for a couple seconds right as I pull off the first spark plug wire. I do appreciate your comments and I certainly did go check that to make sure it wasn't loose. Thanks for your comment and have a great day.
ReichpoloTech hey thanks for the response. Good to hear your machine is A-OK. I don't know enough about image stabailization and filming so I had no clue that was the deal haha. I just replaced a coil on a 17hp Kawasaki using this technique for diagnosis. I had one loosen up and contact the flywheel. Luckily didn't rip the mounting ear off, just glazed the surface of the coil contact. Had pulled your video to show my buddy what I was doing. Solid info and always great to watch for a quick memory refresher. Thanks again. Keep up the solid work!
My Ztrak 925a would mow fine and then intermittantly the mower blades would turn off. I would push the mower switch down and then pull it back on and the mower blades would spin. Apparently the push pull switch was bad. I replaced it twice. The third time, John Deere parts had done away with the push pull switch, and superseded it with a rocker switch, which works much better and does not cut out. BUT, the john deere replacement switch does not fit into the existing switch mounting hole. (bad fix ,John Deer engineer.. Were you thinking about sex again? so you messed up.) I just left the new rocker switch hanging out so I could demonstrate to anyone how John deere fixes things THEY broke. The switch works more reliably than the OEM original equipment part. I am happy again.
Glad you figured out a solution. Thanks for your comment.
Its not always due to a bad coil, you could also have a mechanical defect like valves staying open causing not enough compression to support combustion , you should perform a compression test to confirm your diagnosis...!
I understand what you are saying, BUT I say it numerous times in the video that it is "likely" or "more than likely" the ignition coil pack, because we all know that there can literally be a thousand different reasons for issues. I didn't have hours and hours to go through them all on the video or it would be hours long, so I showed this as a way to eliminate a few and get a "likely" reason for those people with slightly less knowledge of engines and also possibly less tools in their possession. I appreciate the comment. I like when people post intelligent comments. Thanks.
Easier way to test for a dead cylinder is with a spray bottle of water, spray it on the exhaust pipe coming from each side and the one that doesn't sizzle is the dead cylinder, that way you don't burn your hand or shock yourself pulling a plug wire.
Long time ago I pulled a spark plug wire on my car and got the snot shocked out of me. Good times.
Mine won’t start just making a click , an nothing
That sounds like possibly a starter relay or possibly one of the safety switches are bad. Just a guess though.
Why didn't I think of that?
That is why RUclips is such a great free tool, because we can share ideas and help each other. Thanks for your comment.
hi
Hello. Thanks for watching.
Is there dog shit in the tire tread?
You are very brave to touch those wire boots. A slight cut can shock the crap out of you.