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Hard Starting Kohler


Terry_Hart

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I have a 18 hp Kohler in my Sovereign. When cold it does't turn over well. New battery and cables. Mobile 1, 10-30. Once it starts it will restart easily. Any suggestions on where to go next, starter? Thanks
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What are the cold cranking amps of your battery? How old is the battery? Were you pushing in the clutch? This helps in turning over faster. Also check and clean all battery and starter circuit connections including ground connections.
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do u have a good ground. you say new cables they might be to thin. bad connection(green copper) some where clean terminals use dielectric grease or Vaseline on all your terminals good luck
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Bad ground, starter going, change to semi synthetic in the hydro pump...push the brake pedal in and see if its the same. It will disengage the pump so you clear one off your list...
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Thanks for the ideas. The new battery is a 51R I think 450 CCA. Battery cables are 2 gauge. The clutch makes sense. The hard starting got worse after changing the hydo fluid. The stuff that came out was like ATF Vs the Simplicity stuff. Definitely higher viscosity.
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I know you said you had a new battery but have you had it load tested. I was having the very same trouble and everything was clean and tight. was just about ready to condemn the starter but I decided to take the battery back to have it checked and it failed the load test. They swapped it out and it corrected the problem. Just a possibility, even the best of them produce a defective item every once in a while...some more often than others.
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I will have to load test it this week. The battery is only about a week old, it could be bad. IT is pretty warm out tonight about 45, I put the battery tender on it earlier. When I just went out it started right up.
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well my 7119 was having the same problems. had a new battery cables and it was all rewired. and it was 15 out when i neeed to use and I got it started but lost forward and rev. come to find out i had water in the rearend . changed the fluid and put new filter on it and it dont even need the clutch pushed in no more . thanks to all the great people on here got it figured out . Now I would take a bunch of snow for one good blowing and I would be a real happy seat time
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  • 2 weeks later...
Still hard starting. I had the battery fully charged, pushed in the clutch and still hard to turn over after sereval attempts it finally started to spin and started. I know it is tough to turn the hydo. I had to let it run for a few minutes and increase the throttle to let the clutch out. Ran fine and restarted without pushing the clutch in then.
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Have you been able to work the tractor hard for half to an hour? I was having hard starting issues that didn't go away by cleaning all the connections. The battery was new this past spring and I too was ready to rebuild the starter. This occurred in the period after mowing and tilling was over for the season and before snow blowing started... The tractor was mostly sitting and it was cold out... I figure I just didn't give it enough time to get charged all the way or maybe had some carbon or fuel issue. After some extended time running her under load she's starting well again.. all by herself
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Had a Briggs with OHV that came on a 90's Simplicity tractor which I bought on Ebay and was advertised as had a blown engine. Engine wouldn't crank at all, it also had a brand new battery and cables. When I got it home I adjusted the valves on the engine as it said in the manual and it cranked right over and started right up with out any hesitation.
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