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Cub not starting intermittently

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:56 pm
by Chris Jones
My father complains sometimes his cub does nothing when he pulls the starter. The starter doesn't make any noise at all. A bit later it'll work fine. I can't reproduce it and I've never seen it do that. He seems to think I can fix it but I have no idea what is going on. Any ideas?

Re: Cub not starting intermittently

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 10:18 pm
by Former Member
Yep, clean ALL the contacts and grounds from the battery to the starter. Remove starter. Remove starter switch. Clean contacts inside switch, Or, replace with a new one.

Weather, humidity, temperature and even Gremlins will cause those symptoms. Dielectric grease on all those connections would be a plus.

Re: Cub not starting intermittently

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 12:10 pm
by bythepond88
Dale Shaw wrote:Yep, clean ALL the contacts and grounds from the battery to the starter


This includes pulling the cables off the battery posts and giving them a good scrub with a battery brush. I recently had this problem, and it turned out to be corrosion between the positive post and the cable. The tractor started fine, but stalled, and when I pulled on the starter rod, nothing. Because the failure happened so suddenly, I suspected the starter. I did check most of the connections, but the positive cable was solidly on the battery post, so I just used an Ohmmeter to check it. Even on the 20 ohm setting, it showed zero, so I figured that one was good.

Replaced the starter and the same thing happened. She started, but stalled shortly thereafter, and again nothing out of the starter. I was able to start her by running jumpers from a 12v battery to the post on the starter switch and the base of the regulater, but as soon as I disconnected the positive clamp from the tractor, she died. Loosened the positive cable clamp from the battery, and sure enough, there was a good bit of corrosion. Could have saved myself the cost of the starter.

Re: Cub not starting intermittently

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:41 pm
by beaconlight
All electrical connections need to be cleaned and greased to slow down future corrosion. You can't stop it completely for it will eventually come back if you live long enough.