Pto switch John Deere LX 188 2 cyl. Water cooler kawasaki

Have a fully charged 12 volt battery, 12 volts yellow wire to pro switch, no voltage or continuance between any terminals when switch is on or off. 12 volt jumper makes electric clutch work. Main switch turns engine . Faculty pro switch? Have by passed seat switch

Did your problems start when you bypassed that seat switch? Lots of the newer mowers have features that make it pretty hard to bypass the safety equipment without causing other problems.

Is that one of the Deeres that has the printed circuit board on the pigtail soldered to the back of the switch. (Can't help you there, if it is. No experience with them.)

t.r.k.
Yes the ignition switch has a printed circuit board . Bought a new pto switch and still same problem. Took the old one apart and checked where wires went. several went to the back of the switch. Put a jumper wire between the hot wire to the pto switch and one of the wires from the pto switch to a wire that would be the wire to power the wire that goes to the pto. It worked. I would guess that one of the modules on the back of the switch may be faulty. New switch is $$$ so will use it with my own repair until I am sure if main switch is faulty. There are three safety switches on the machine. Seat switch, pto switch, and brake switch. Machine starts and runs good. Have to depress the brake in order to have the switch power up the solenoid and starter. Think this is typical with other John Deere riders I have been around. Thank you for your interest.

t.r.k.
Yes the ignition switch has a printed circuit board . Bought a new pto switch and still same problem. Took the old one apart and checked where wires went. several went to the back of the switch. Put a jumper wire between the hot wire to the pto switch and one of the wires from the pto switch to a wire that would be the wire to power the wire that goes to the pto. It worked. I would guess that one of the modules on the back of the switch may be faulty. New switch is $$$ so will use it with my own repair until I am sure if main switch is faulty. There are three safety switches on the machine. Seat switch, pto switch, and brake switch. Machine starts and runs good. Have to depress the brake in order to have the switch power up the solenoid and starter. Think this is typical with other John Deere riders I have been around. Thank you for your interest.

t.r.k.
Had the problem prior to bypassing the seat switch.

Just a shot in the dark,do you still have the brake locked down when you try to engage the deck? I fought one for two days before I realized the deck wont run in park.

t.r.k.
Found that out by trial and error. Everything was working great, engine running, and the pto engaged correctly.
Was going to start it today and now the main circuit board has a buzz in it. Nothing works now. Have to check out wiring harness
Thanks for the interest.

t.r.k.
Found that out by trial and error. Everything was working great, engine running, and the pto engaged correctly.
Was going to start it today and now the main circuit board has a buzz in it. Nothing works now. Have to check out wiring harness
Thanks for the interest.

504,
Just discovered why the Kawasaki electrical system was having trouble on my LX188. When I installed the front metal guard I accicentally pinched the electrical connection for the solenoid which shuts the gas off to the carburetor when the engine is stopped. Back in business but the pto switch continues to not engage the pto. Ipm going to put a push pull switch in the dash and run a hot wire to one side of the switch and a wire to the pto from the other side of the switch.

504,
I have the deck off for repairs. Have been thinking about what you said about the deck not running in park. Does the machine have to be running to engage the deck? The one I have has to have the brake locked down to start. I haven't tried to engage the pto when the machine is running since the deck is off. Deck will engage with a jumber wire from the battery. Machine has to be running to engage the deck?

Its been at least 5 years, can't remember what the problem was with that Deere that used that switch with the PC board attached to it, but a new switch fixed it. And it was $$$ then too.

I bought a new one from Washington tractor, John Deere Dealership, today. $140.00. Found out that I had pinched the wire that controls the solenoid for fuel shut off in the carburetor. Switch stopped buzzing so put the old one back in incase something else was wrong. Working again. It is my opinion that the electrical system on the LX 188 is complicated. JD used a solid state ignition module unit which has many wires attached. The single cylinder and two cylinder briggs and Stratton engines on sears mowers have a simplier system. The briggs contained solid state ignition coil, ordinary ignition switch works fine. The John Deere machine is built much heavier than the sears mowers I have repaired. I'm not convinced tht the two cylinder water cooled Kawasaki engine is better that a single or double cylinder briggs and Stratton. John Deere Company is very proub of their parts. I have a 1984 john deere compact tractor which has a 3 cylinder yanmar diesel. Again parts from JD are very expensive for it. However JD does make good equipment. Our website is einarjensen.com if you would be interested in the older farm equipment my wife and I have collected and repaired of the last 40 years.

Yes, I agree, Deere does seem to make their electrical wiring unnecessarily complicated.

As far as the water cooled Kawasaki engines go, I think they are pretty good. My biggest complaint is the coils on most of them are exposed and pretty sensitive to moisture.

Some of them did have problems with the composite cam gear blowing after about 600 hours, but I think they had that fixed by the time yours was made. It was a pretty expensive repair, but the 2 times I saw it happen, it didn't damage the block, so it was fixable.

The big drawback to that oarticular Deere frame is you are just about roped in to using the water colled engine, there is no place to get enough cooling air otherwise.

t.r.k.

I was talking to a mechanic in one of Washington Tractors stores. He told me they have a special piece of diagnostic eq. which plugs into one of the wiring harness plug ins on the master switch.The tool they have is able to check all circuits.
The LX 188 I have is one a friend gave me. He didn't want to fix it. The plastic hood on the one I have is broken. I'm going to leave it off and ones on eBay are very expensive. May be able to patch the one I have

Had the same problem. After replacing the switch and no fix, I traced the wires from the clutch to the circuit board. Pulled the wire off and cleaned the contact. Plugged the wire back on to the board and it works fine now.

Rusty Wheel,
I tried cleaning the connectors but maybe I need to clean better. The wires that plug into the circuit board on my machine are in a special connector which plug into spade connectors on the circuit board. I was thinking that the pto relay which I think is on the circuit board is bad. The relay is a solid part of the circuit board. Was the wire you cleaned a separate wire or was it inside a special connector? The ignition switch on my LX 188 is really a circuit board. Is yours the same? Looks like there are several different types of circuit boards used on the LX188. Would really like to know more about the circuit board on your machine.
Have my LX188 in my garage. Does the machine have to be running for the pto switch to work? Switch I installed when connected to the pto a distinct connection is heard. I know that the PTO switch doesn't work when the brake is on. Would appreciate any additional information you could provide.

The pto switch on my LX188 has been byhpased with a new switch independent of the regular pto switch.
Have included a couple of pictures of the switch on my LX188, wanted to know if others have the same switch on their machines.

Found out why the pto switch would not work on my John Deere LX188.
The ignition switch is on a board with curcuits. There are several relay switches on the circuit board.
Replaced the ignition switch which includes the circuit board and the PTO switch works good now. It is my opinion that the pto relay switch on the original switch had failed.Bought an ignition switch on ebay and took the new switch from john Deere back to the dealer. The new switch was different from the switch in the machine I have. Switch from ebay was identical