I have a small rideon tractor that don't work it is an Ariens it will turn over about 4 times then it just dies and the starter doesn't spin any more but if I wait about 5 min or so it will turn again but then stop. It might be a battery but then why would it turnover after it dies?

 

It sounds like a bad connection, or bad battery. If the battery is weak it won't hold a charge as long. So it may only get a few turns of the engine before it's reserve is used up. You wait a few minutes it builds back up and does it again. What engine is in it? That will help too.

 

briggs and straton 9 hp I think but I will look whn i get home i am at school right now

 

Put a voltmeter on the battery and crank the engine. It should drop to no less than 10 volts.

 

Sure sounds like the battery to me. Batteries will recharge slightly if you let them sit, and turn over again. If it was me, I'd check the connections on the battery terminals to be sure they're tight and clean. If that doesn't work, try to jump it off another battery. Lawn tractor batteries for an engine that small are pretty cheap at HD (maybe $30 or so), and if you change it be sure to clean the connections.

You don't say how old the tractor/battery is, but if it's more than a few years, it is probably the battery.

 

I think the batery is about like 3 years old or maybe 2 so is it time for a new one?

 

Hard to say, some last years, I had one go bad in less than one season.

If the connections are good, try jumping it, or throwing it on a charger. If it starts up, you know the battery was dead. Then run the tractor (at good throttle) for a while (maybe an hour) and shut it down. See if it starts. If it does, wait a day and see if it will start then. If not, the battery is only holding a charge for a while and should be replace.

If it doesn't start when jumped/charged, then my bet goes to a bad connection or wire. They are tough to track down, just keep plugging.

Let us know where your troubleshooting gets you.

 

well i tryed to jump it but it didn't work and all the connections looked good so i don't know what to do now?

 

Check the connections all the way to the starter, and the ground. Assuming all these are good, it's either the wires themselves, the solenoid, or the starter. When it won't start, do you hear the solenoid clicking?

Just hit me that this is probably a relatively new tractor, and probably has a bunch of safety switches in the starting circuit. I haven't worked on any tractors with these, so I don't know how they work, but it wouldn't hurt to check/clean them all.

I'm just guessing on all of this...looks like you might be in for a bit of quality time with a multimeter checking circuits.

 

Ya I can hear the solenoid and it is about 15 years old or so. so not very new but i was looking at all the connections and they look good but i will look again to seeif anything is wrong. what else could it be?

 

It's possible that the starter has gone bad. This is pretty common on the older briggs.

 

Like the other guys said, "Check the connections." I had a similar problem with a Simplicity tractor a while back and I found an extremely corroded connection on the starter and a loose ground connection on the engine.

 

That meets my definition of new enough to be a nightmare to work on.

Try tapping the starter with a hammer, see if you can get it to start.

If you have a dump around, you might see if you can find another tractor with the same engine and pull the starter off of it. My grandfather gets a lot of small engine parts for free from his local dump.

 

well i went out today and tryed to start it and it worked and it ran for about like 2 seconds and then cut off and wont start again wtf is wrong?

 

It's either out of gas, it's bad, or contaminated with water.