Zero Turn Mower Down on Power - Not Firing on all Cylinders

foreign hey guys welcome back so today I'm working on this zero turn Troy-Bilt mower This one belongs to Paul Paul is a local subscriber who has donated some equipment to the channel over the last year you may remember that Tuffy tiller the one that had no compression and more recently I did a video on a Cub Cadet with no steering that was actually his old tractor and this one is his new tractor now I say new I think it's over five years old at this point and he mentioned to me when he was here last that it was down on power so after finding out it was a V-twin engine I suspected potentially one of the cylinders wasn't firing so I told him you know next time he shuts it down check each of the exhaust pipes to see if they're hot and what he found was that one of them was cool now if I was smart I would have asked him which one so I think that's where we're going to start I'm going to start the engine again we'll let it warm up a bit spray a little bit of water in each of those pipes and see if we can't figure out which cylinder is down so just give this pipe here on the right a squirt and yeah see it's instantly turning to steam and I can feel the heat over there so I'm guessing it's the left yeah and that water it's not steaming at all and yeah that that cylinder there is down so let's um get the spark tester on there see if we have any Spark that's kind of tight quarters in here okay it's kind of hard to show you this angle here but I did unplug the other cylinder so the engine doesn't start when I crank to test for spark on the left side but I can see it looks like I don't know if it's a critter Nest or just grass clippings packed in there but that that could definitely cause this to overheat and cause engine problems like is being reported and even on this side again hard to show you but I do see debris in there so potentially this engine has been overheated and we might have some more serious issues here other than spark so let's just crank the engine and see if we have spark actually I did not see any Spark just move the ground make sure I have a good ground and the battery's dying too so yeah let me throw a battery charger on here and you know this is going to be an easy fix if it's just Spark but since we're here let's get the spark plug out and double check the compression that plug looks almost new like it's never been fired or potentially just hasn't fired in a long time and all the fuel washing over it may have cleaned it up anyway let's check the compression so let's give this a try I don't know what the compression should be on this engine you know I'm looking for something obviously above zero you need about a hundred PSI for a cylinder to fire on a four-stroke engine and this may have a compression release so we might see something closer to 60 PSI you know I'd say anything 60 or above would be a good sign [Music] beautiful and where at I'd say about 180 PSI so this cylinder should fire there's nothing wrong with it other than we don't have spark so let's get the top cover off get the access we need to take a look at those coils to get this cover off it looks like there's just a series of bolts going around the perimeter here so if we get those out that should more or less free things up you know looks like we have a fuel pump here which is held on by two bolts so we'll have to get that out as well and most likely the air box cover and filter have to come off first and then theoretically we should be able to lift that cover out of there a little bit bit of debris [Music] foreign that is pretty bad there is a ton of debris packed in on each cylinder so yeah this engine was not cooling very well and I think Paul got pretty lucky that both cylinders seem to have compression so I'm going to take a second just vacuum out all this debris blow out all the remaining bits and then we'll take a closer look at that coil [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] did that just break off I was gonna test for spark again after removing this wire from the coil and I went to unplug it and it just kind of fell right off I'm not even sure if it was even connected you know it's not that it was unplugged you can actually see the tab still in that connector it just corroded off so yeah I'm thinking The Mouse House might have been right on this coil it peed all over it and caused this to corrode and most likely that's why this coil failed so before ordering a new coil I do want to run a few more tests just to make a hundred percent sure you know we have a good coil there so I'm gonna get the multimeter out just see what the ohms are of the primary and the secondary and we'll do the same test over here there is a lot of corrosion on this coil too so there's no saying it's a hundred percent good we know it at least runs this cylinder though so I've got the multimeter set to ohms to test the primary put one lead here on the kill Tab and another one on a clean piece of metal on the coil which might be a little challenging so we're getting 5 million ohms and that is actually too high I'm thinking we're getting a bad connection here so yeah let me clean off a spot maybe on the coil and try this again yeah it's a little better but it's still over what I would expect it to be and on the primary side usually and this is not on this engine but on primaries it's usually higher I would say four or five thousand ohms and that actually looks pretty good right about 12 000 so that does seem reasonable let's check the other side all right let's check the primary over here we're at 6.2 million ohms which is way too high and let's check the secondary on the other side it was about 12 million sorry 12 000 and on this side we're at 16.8 thousand ohms so yeah no Smoking Gun neither coil seems very good the primary is way too high you know I don't know what it should be on this engine I would say though in the hundreds of ohms not Millions like we're seeing here so I'm actually going to order up two new coils and both cylinders at that point should run one last check I want to do before ordering any parts Paul mentioned the battery was not holding a charge and I guess what I'm wondering is do we have a bad power regulator because this does look pretty corroded it was kind of in the vicinity of where that mouse was and the battery is quite low I did have to charge it I took one of the leads off right now so the voltage it's dropping currently we're at 12.82 you know I want to start the engine see that the voltage climbs just above 14 volts and if it does then it means we have a good regulator still and I've also reinstalled the spark plug and just put this tester in line we'll take a peek at that as well and just make sure now that we're a hundred percent that this kill wire is disconnected that we're still missing Spark thank you yeah it's good okay good the regulator seems to be working we were charging without issue and again no spark over here even with that kill wire disconnected so we definitely need a new coil on this side I'm just going to get two new ones you know I would say most likely we need a new battery as well and the only other thing on this machine that Paul mentioned is an issue are these wheels they don't hold air more than a few days the front wheels so I'm going to inflate them now just get this back in the garage take a closer look maybe spray some soapy water on there and see if we can't figure out where the air is leaking out [Applause] [Applause] coils they've been ordered actually found them on Amazon supposedly genuine coils I ordered a set of two for just over sixty dollars those will be here in a couple days so well waiting for those I'm just going to turn my attention to the battery in the wheels it's actually been 24 hours and I was double checking where the pressure was at I had filled both of these to 14 pounds of pressure and this one it's holding some air but we're down to about six pounds of pressure so we are losing air there at a pretty quick rate and this one which has a different tread pattern is actually one of the original wheels on this machine that one was replaced on the other side and this one has been tubed and this one is also completely flat so yeah maybe we need a new tube I guess I'm wondering why it was tubed in the first place it doesn't look that bad anyway I'm just going to fill this one back up since it's a slow leak we'll bring it back to about 14 pounds get a little soapy water on there and see if we can't find that leak and surprisingly we don't have any leaks where the bead is on either side the valve stem looks decent although I do see a couple of small bubbles coming out of there so that does need to be replaced the big problem area is on the tread we've got a leak there a pretty big leak there and another one right there so yeah I mean this could be tubed you could definitely slime it or put ATF in it and that should slow down the problem or even fix it you know in this case this is an aftermarket wheel and the material is pretty thin so even though there's no dry rot and it's only a few years old it's not holding up very well so I already spoke with Paul he said he just wants a new OEM wheel like the one that's over there and to that end that wheel doesn't look too bad other than the fact the tube isn't holding air so I think before ordering two new Wheels I'm just going to pull that tube out put a new valve stem in there and see if that wheel is any good and if it's not we'll just order a set just going to get the valve out I know it's already flat but you'd be surprised how much easier it makes it you know that said I don't have a tire changer and these small tires are deceivingly difficult the smaller they are I find the more difficult they are so I might actually need to go out and buy the right tool to do this and it kills me because I used to have a tool to change small tires and I used it once I think over the course of three years and actually gave it away and yeah that was a mistake so yeah that beat's not moving maybe a C-clamp we'll get that off there we go foreign see there's a bunch of grass and junk that I think was on the bead and I haven't found any major issues with this tire yet so you know I'm actually going to flip it over I need to break the bead on the other side as well so we can clean up both sides really well put a new valve in there and see if it'll hold any air foreign C-clamp won't work on this side at least not that one you need a bigger one there we go foreign so we give this valve a try it's just a standard size I have no idea what size it is and usually they fit so I've never really questioned it okay foreign until I get to right there so we do have one leak and I think that's the extent of it I did spray the other side and don't see any issues with it so yeah actually maybe two leaks I see that bubble growing right there so yeah not the end of the world you could tube it which is what Paul did in the past and swapped out the other wheel and then they both ended up leaking again so I think he is just done with these wheels he wants some new ones so we'll get him a new set and as far as the battery goes I did charge it up I had the charger on it for 24 hours had no issues the charger didn't complain about the battery's condition but what I did notice is that every few hours after it was charged the charger would come back on and top the battery off so yeah I think it is self-discharging a bit and of course if you let this sit for a week or two that becomes a bigger problem right now we are actually sitting at a pretty good voltage at about 12.8 volts and this when I hold the button down it'll put a 100 amp load on the battery and the voltage drop indicates how strong the battery is so if I hold the button down you can see that needle drops to about 400 amps so yeah I wouldn't say the battery is completely bad but it's certainly been giving him some issues so Paul did pick up a new battery and I actually tested that one it tested really well let me show you and just for comparison this is the battery that Paul got it's rated at 320 CCA cold cranking amps the other one's only rated at 230 and this battery is actually sitting at about 13.4 volts which is pretty good and when I hold the test button down it's holding very steady at 800 amps so yeah definitely a big Improvement and the nice thing here is that it has a handle so one thing to keep in mind when disconnecting any battery is start with the negative terminal the reason for that is because the cable for the negative is connected right to the frame so essentially every piece of metal on this machine is negative and if you accidentally touch from negative to negative there's not a problem but if you touch from positive to negative which is basically anything on this machine you're going to create a short circuit and a lot of current is going to flow through your wrench you know just to illustrate that if I use a test light just clip it on anywhere we get current flow clip it over there we get current flow so starting with the negative it's very safe and once you have that disconnected you can't flow current back to the negative so that's why it's safe at that point to disconnect the positive because if you accidentally touch the body ground well that's disconnected so current can't flow and again just to illustrate that terminal is disconnected current can no longer flow and we got the fuel line here wedged between the battery in this metal rod which I don't think is proper it's probably better there and now we can just lift the battery out with any look Maybe yeah actually there is a bolt down there with this bracket so I think this is meant to kind of hold or wedge the battery up against the wall there and that bolt is actually preventing the battery also from sliding out so I take that back there is something holding the battery in it's just not a whole lot foreign perfect foreign so we've got all the parts we need to finish this up we've got two new color coils and we have two new front wheels so I've already gone ahead and removed the same wheel we had off before it's been removed from the rim the rim is prepped and ready to go this time I do have the tool for changing tires that I used to have I actually went out and bought it again so we've got the rim mounted up and there's really no way to make this look graceful especially on a new wheel they are so distorted and they haven't been stretched out really so it's going to be a struggle I'm sure to get that onto there and I'm fairly certain I'm not going to be able to get this one to beat up properly it's just too squished and yeah I don't think it's gonna work so what I'm going to do is actually put a tube in here inflate it try to get the shape back to normal maybe apply a bit of heat with the heat gun and hopefully get it resembling the shape that it should be you know I've already done that to the other one which wasn't as bad and I'm just going to do the same to this one let them sit for a bit and then try to get them on the rim and the easy thing here would be just to tube both tires and forget about putting them on the rim The Way They Were Meant to and if I was smart I would have ordered tubes for that this tube actually is not the right size for this tire so if I can't get these to seat on the rim you know Plan B would be just to order the correct size tubes all right I'm Gonna Save you guys the pain I just went through trying to get these to seat on this Rim I would say it's not possible despite all the tricks you know inflating it with the tube hitting it with a heat gun using a strap actually multiple straps and then eventually spraying some starting fluid in there and trying that you know these tires they are just too deformed to seat on this Rim so I'm going to pause it here I'm actually going to run down to Tractor Supply and see if they have some that are the correct shape as a plan B and I guess worst case I'll get a set of tubes that fit these tires properly and just go that route made it here to Tractor Supply should have come here first you know the issue is a lot of times I work on equipment pretty late at night and most of the local shops are closed anyway they got a zero turn here with very similar Wheels though these are 11x6 so they're a little small let's see what they have inside I'm gonna have to do a voice over here they were playing music pretty loud and that's definite copyright infringement if I play that audio anyway they had a good Tire selection here were some Carlisle they were a little bit too big but I did find the correct size here and another brand these are zero turn Wheels which will be perfect I think for this machine they also had some turf tires of the correct size but on a zero turn that'll chew the grass up pretty bad so I ended up going with the Zero Turns of the correct size pretty optimistic with these I don't think I told you how long I spent on the others again I kind of saved you guys the grief I spent almost three hours trying to get them to seat and I'm willing to bet this is going to be quite a bit faster foreign [Music] foreign looks like we're good foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign there we go and I even left the valve stem in not too bad tires are looking pretty good it's been about five minutes at least and I don't see any signs of leakage so good let's get this one back on and we'll move on finish it up by getting those new coils on [Applause] okay foreign let's get these new coils on here these little bolts always make me nervous they strip out easy they can also break easy [Music] and these are the same part number on each side so it shouldn't matter where they go but what's important is which way you put it you don't want to put it upside down because it's not going to spark or if it does timing is going to be off so you just use a business card to set the Gap right now I have the coil pulled away as far as it'll go and you want to get the magnet in position in this case I'm actually hitting the coil so I may not have set it all the way back like I should have so it's best to rotate the magnet away when doing this otherwise you're just going to be fighting that magnet so rotate it back okay good we're not hitting card right in there should be about ten thousands of an inch loosen up the coil and the magnet will just pull it in then snug it back up don't use power tools for this and use the smallest driver you have because these are very very small bolts it's pretty much the same procedure over here okay then just rotate the engine once around make sure there's no contact with the new coils and we're good actually I was wrong that is not a broken tab there it seems to be spring-loaded and it's just a bunch of corrosion so you know what I got a file that a subscriber sent me specifically to clean stuff up like that so let me get that out we'll give it a first try this is the set right here so we have some different sizes to choose from because I probably should read the directions first but that'll do foreign yeah that should do let's double check spark here this is the side that had no spark and I suspect we will now beautiful we got strong Spark let's check the other side and this the side that had spark we just want to make sure we still have it with the new coil beautiful nice strong spark on both sides this thing should be good so let's get the covers back on and try it out gotta get the spark plug wires just in the right spot to allow the cover to drop down I may have lost a bolt can't find the other one for the fuel pump so I'll put this one on for now and have a look around I couldn't have gone too far a few minutes walking around in circles and I finally gave up went to put the air filter on and realized I put it with the air filter for some reason thought I put them all in the cup holder so yeah false alarm there I was getting worried that maybe it dropped in a bad spot potentially under the blower housing all right let's check these pipes the one on the right was the good cylinder we'll make sure it's still good and it is nice and hot and this was the bad one yeah and that's nice and hot as well so we are running on both cylinders so I would say the engine issue is sorted a couple other things I noticed actually when pulling this out you know this machine is about seven years old but according to the clock here we only have 82.7 hours on it so it is pretty young as far as tractors go I usually don't get them this new the other thing I was wondering was this claim right here zero turn with four wheel steer and usually on Zero Turns you have the two levers where you can have one wheel going forward while the other one's going backward so I was wondering how that worked on this machine the turning radius it's quite good as far as how far you can turn the front wheels so we get at least two wheels turning but how do we get to four the back ones don't turn at all but what I did notice is when pulling it out and making a sharp turn it actually cut power to the inside wheel and kept it going on the outside so that's what allows it to Pivot as it says right there and make sharp turns so yeah not too bad anyway I'm gonna get this thing started up we'll just run it a bit in the yard maybe go up some steep hills engage the blades and just see how this thing does the grass shoe too I should have mentioned this earlier Paul does have that he had to take it off because it won't fit in his shed the way that it is so you know that is going to stay like that definitely a safety concern so don't have anyone standing by it if you're going to take your shoot off like this one and of course it's um yeah a little bit of a hazard so be careful foreign [Music] [Music] foreign thank you [Music] foreign I'm pretty impressed with this machine you know I had my doubts if this was a true zero turn you know I'd say those doubts are gone because it had no issues going in circles around these Tree Trunks and in fact I actually had to cut the wheel back a bit because it was turning a little bit too sharp anyway the engine I would say it's a hundred percent you know I was a little concerned going into it that we might have some internal damage to the engine and thankfully it was just a coil so that was an easy fix we've got a new battery and for me anyway the biggest struggle here with the front tires the ones I got in the mail were just complete garbage and wasted a ton of time so lesson definitely learned there you know go to Tractor Supply get ones that are a nice shape they'll go on much easier and the bead will seat so I hope this video helps someone thanks for watching foreign

Channel: James Condon

Views: 348,495

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Id: w_BSi_E-Ft8

Length: 60min 34sec (3634 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2023