FREE SCOTTS BY JOHN DEERE LAWN TRACTOR REPOWER W/2ND KOHLER COMMAND ENGINE WIRING MUFFLER ISSUES FIX

Hey guys, how you doing? It's Henry at Mowers and Blowers. Good morning. Welcome to part two of my Scott's by John Deere 1742 lawn tractor repower. Repower because I got the machine without a battery, without an engine. Everything else looks okay. Might need some new tires for the front. The right rear and the back came off the bead. I had to put it back on the bead, but a day later it's now flat again. So I either put some ATF in there to seal the slow leak and replace these front wheels. Yesterday we took this disassembled Kohler Command 17 horsepower engine. Got it from my friend Nick Iardi from West Islip. It had a backfire, so he took it apart. He didn't want to put it back together again, so he gave it to me. So I had to put it all back together again, missing a few parts. Yesterday we replaced the parts that we had by putting an oil pump gear and oil pump cover on the bottom. Stripped a couple of bolts, got it to work, whatever. At least I think it works. And we put a dipstick on yesterday along with the heat shield isolator over here. And we mounted the engine yesterday with the four engine mounting bolts. Looking at this today a little bit more carefully, I kind of have the feeling that the wiring harness has been cut and sliced in several places. As you can see, there's a lot of wires that are just like disconnected. I almost want to say that this tractor had a Briggs engine in it instead of the Kohler, because the Scots by John Deere had both. It had the Kohler Command engines on them, and it also had the Intec ones. Because of these harness modules, if you look at this, this is typically a Briggs type. This one goes to the stator, and this one goes to the rest of the harness, probably the lights. And usually the Briggs have the lights on this side, which this one doesn't have. Most of the wiring harness on this engine is on the left side. And while this has the wiring harness intact, as you can look from this module, you have probably a ground wire here, and this harness module is all burned out like it had a short somewhere. So it's going to be very challenging for me to figure out the safety switches. This thing goes from the brake safety switch up to the module. There's also another safety switch bundle of wires that have been cut. This leads to the PTO safety switch under here. So I mean, I have a feeling that I'm going to have to bypass all the wiring and just hardwire it straight from the battery and the ignition switch and solenoid straight to the engine for this thing to work. Otherwise, it'll take me months to figure out which one of these wires is what, you know, given that I'm not the one who cut them, you know what I mean? There's just too many cut wires. There's like seven cut wires on this part, four cut wires on this part, and four cut wires on that part. So a total of like almost 18 or 20 cut wires that I have no idea where it leads to, you know what I mean? Given we're doing a Briggs wiring harness onto a Kohler wiring harness, you know, different colors, different gauge. It'll be a complete nightmare, but I don't think I can get anything done without first removing the gas tank. If you look at the gas tank, it's in pretty dirty shape, but, and inside, if you look, can you guys see that? The cap vent thing is gone. Well, actually, it's right here, but probably some kind of lining or something like that has wore out, broken off, and fell in there. Still has gas in it, so we're gonna have to take that gas out anyway. So I think for me to be able to see anything here and to rewire everything from the ignition switch, I'm gonna have to remove this gas tank for sure, and that's what I'm gonna do right now, and at least that gives us a better look at what's going on back there, you know? I also have to, first, I'm going to see if the muffler fits, because I had to remove the muffler and mount the engine because of all this. This stuff over here wouldn't allow me to get the crankshaft through the hole and have the muffler sit there at the same time, you know, in one shot, so I had to remove the muffler. So I'm gonna try to replace the muffler back in. I hope it fits into this crevice here and fits into the, you know, output of the exhaust. I hope it does, otherwise I'm gonna have muffler problems too, you know? So I've got big problems here. This is the muffler that came off of this engine. I had to remove it because it wouldn't fit. Well, now I know why it doesn't fit. I thought it was just because stuff was in the way, and when you mount it, you gotta take it apart before you put it on, but this part here of the frame, you know, you can't move that. It's part of the frame, right? Well, if you look underneath there, the output is right there. I'm off by probably two inches or so, and it's just not gonna match up right, you know, because this thing is in the way. So there's no way I could use this muffler, and there's only so many mufflers that have a bottom output of the exhaust, you know? Usually they're to the side, like this one, which you can look at this one, it's to the side, and Briggs engines have them to the side. So I am now thinking that the original engine on this tractor was a Briggs engine, not a Kohler, so to adapt it to a Kohler is gonna be very difficult. I mean, I'll go in a shed and see if I have another muffler that has a bottom input to the exhaust, but I doubt it, you know? It's not like I have mufflers sitting around everywhere, so this is gonna be a challenge. I might have to rethink the fact that I probably can't use this engine on this machine because there's just too much fabrication you gotta do to it, you know? So I went and searched and searched. I had to cut this bracket off of this thing here just to see if it'll fit, and this way, the other way, it just won't fit, you know? This thing is off from the hole by a lot because of this area here. So I don't think I can put this engine on here, guys. I might have to rethink this whole thing and not use this engine. I've decided that we definitely can't use this engine for this because of the way the exhaust comes out at the bottom, and the way this chassis is designed that has the frame rail here. It's just impossible because the hole is like right where this frame rail is, you know? So it's just not matched up for this, so I can't use this engine. You know, I have another Kohler Command. It's a 12.5, and it has the muffler to the side already put on there, but I feel that it's too powered, too low, you know, by 12.5, but then again, what's the difference, right? I have to use 12.5 for a tractor anyway. I also have a Kohler 19, but I need to swap out the camshafts for this because this one doesn't have a compression release lever on it. I have cams for it. It's just that I have to take it apart, you know? It's a pain in the ass. I have this Intec Briggs V-Twin that Nick from Bellport gave me. It had a bent push rod in it in the left cylinder, so I replaced the push rod, but I didn't really fix the reason why it was a bent push rod. Like, if I tried to start this again, it may just bend again, so it could be a valve seat that I need to bang in a little bit more. That might be it, but I'd like to try, but this is a 23 horsepower, I believe, and it's got, like, you know, cosmetic problems with it, you know? The cover and stuff, and these are very expensive, so I don't know. I might run into... Will I run into the same problem with this Kohler Command? No, because it already has a muffler on it, right? I guess I could try that. I could just put this Kohler on there, or I could do the cam job and put that on there. Either way, it's a Kohler, you know what I mean? So, I'm kind of thinking about what I should do. While I'm still thinking, I figured we can't use this for sure, so why leave it on there? So, I disconnected the engine mounting bolts and put it on this stand. These power washer stands are really handy when you, you know, keep the stand. Great for engine stands that you can move around. You know, maybe this was a Kohler engine, you know why? Because if you look at the throttle cable, right? It's laid perfectly for this engine. If it was a Briggs, it would work for Briggs, too. Never mind, but this is convenient because the throttle reaches right there. It was like that for this, too. So, I don't know. I guess I just chose this because it was the closest to me and easiest to grab. I guess it'll be all right. So, if I'm going to use this engine, right? This didn't come with a starter, so I think I have a spare starter that I bought for this a while back. I'm going to whip it out and see if it works. I hope it works because this has the muffler already attached onto it. I'm not going to need this shield over here, so I'm going to remove this shield. Then, I'm going to remove the gas tank because it's in the way. I need to figure out stuff. Every bolt is removed for the gas tank. It still doesn't want to come off. What the hell? What is holding this on? Oh, my god. There's like 12 other screws over here. Just to hold the gas tank on. All right. That's it. Now, the gas tank should come off. What the hell? Uh-oh. The SB is spilling out. I got to clamp. All right. I've clamped off the fuel line. It should come out now. It's got like a breather tube on the other end here. There we go. Holy cow. It's got a fuse line connected to it. It's a multi-purpose gas tank, man. Structurally sound. I'm going to drain this gas and dump out. Let's see what's inside this gas tank. Gas is old, obviously. Yellow and orange. Quite a lot of it. I'm going to save this for testing fuel. Look what was inside this gas tank. Is that crazy or what? That's just trash, man. So, back to this. We've drained the gas tank of its crap inside, and I was just looking at the harness here because I have a better view of where everything goes. There's the ignition switch, where this all leads into this harness here. I think the four Zs, four Zs meaning the purple with black, purple solid, white, white with black. That's the safety switches. These four are for the PTO safety switch. These four are for the brake safety switch, and they're all interconnected to each other. So, look. I was saying how there's four cut here, right? Well, it's a solid purple, a purple with black, or purple white, solid white, and solid white with black. Okay, that's that coming out of this hole. The hole was over here, but I put it over there. The other one is the same thing. See? It's a solid purple coming out of this module here, white with black, solid white, and purple solid. So, those seem to be the only ones that are cut other than the yellow one here, but I think I know what that is. I think this is the lights, you know? Or is that the lights? I mean, it'll drive you crazy just looking at it. You know what I mean? But I want to kind of give the safety switches a chance before I bypass the whole thing. Then you'll have no safety switches, and usually when you want to sell something like this, people do want some type of safety switch. So, I'm going to give it a chance before I bypass it. I'm going to connect what looks like they connect together. You know what I mean? These four connected to those four, and they're the same color, you know? So, I'm just going to connect the ones with the same color. So, I've been working on this all day. Connected. I couldn't find the exact prongs to fit, so I just cut it, put a wire to magneto, hopefully, right? And a thicker white wire. I don't know why it always disappears when I'm trying to show you guys, you know what I mean? There it is. A thicker white wire to power. So, this should be going to the, I want to say the black wire coming out of the voltage regulator, and this goes to the battery. I mean, at least that should be the battery. We'll find out. I need to put a new battery in the back of that. I have a new battery. It's my last one that I bought from Walmart. A little background of this engine. Where did I get it from? About a year ago, I want to say, a guy was throwing away a snapper lawn tractor. Snapper lawn tractor. The tractor was just trashed. The transmission was gone. Axles were bent, whatever. I don't really remember exactly why I didn't use it, but it was all frozen up, rusted to junk. So, I stripped it. The only thing I kept of it was some parts and the engine. So, I don't know if the engine works. I just don't. But the Kohler commands, I have never had a blown connecting rod to it before. So, while I was just sitting there, I heard this big crash on the opposing street over there. I'm just curious as to what that crash was. I mean, it was huge. A huge crash. That's what it sounded like. I'm going to just go walk over there and see. I just heard my local volunteer fire department siren go off. So, somebody's calling 9-1-1. Oh. Oh my goodness. It's a mail truck. Oh no. I hope it's not somebody I know. Oh, it's not somebody I know. Holy cow. Took off this guy's entire wheel. Holy moly. Glad nobody was hurt. You all right, man? Could have been worse. Yeah, you could have hit that pole. Look, he barely missed this pole right here. Oh boy, what excitement, huh? Just another day of Henry wrenching in the garage. All kinds of excitement going on. I wouldn't call today a really good day for me because I really spent all day just swapping out another engine after finding out that the muffler wouldn't fit. You know what I mean? I don't even know if this engine is going to work. We're going to need to put a battery on here and test the starter switch, the starter, solenoid, see if the wiring that I tried to put together is correct. I actually do even want to see if this connecting rod is connected. You know what I mean? When I rotate this counterclockwise, I do feel compression and then there's a part where it goes, you hear something, but it sounds like a release something or other. Listen, right there. Like a lever going click, you know? Like that. You know what I mean? But I've heard it before. Anyway, I'm done. In part three, we're going to put the battery on. We're going to test the starter. Oh, by the way, you guys saw I put a starter on here too, right? I ordered it off eBay a while back in anticipation for this engine to run because when I got this engine, I knew it didn't have a starter. I knew I was going to need one, so I bought one. It's been sitting in my drawer over there for however long this engine's been down there, you know? There's a ground strap on these older Kohler Command 12.5 engines. It's a ground strap from the engine block or frame that needed to be connected to the frame. I mean, I don't really know why you need that. You already have the engine mounting bolts that are grounding it, you know? But we'll take the spark plug out tomorrow and see if the connecting and the piston is moving up and down, and then we'll put the battery on if that's all good, and then we'll try the ignition switch solenoid starter, see if it cranks, and then if it starts up, you know, I didn't do a thing to this engine. Just took it off the tractor on the street, you know, that I found off the street, and here it is on this tractor right here. So we'll find out in part three. Stay tuned, fellas. Thanks a lot for joining me on today's episode. We'll see you next time on Mowers and Blowers. See you guys next time on Mowers and Blowers. Hey, if you guys enjoyed the video, remember to give me a like. Also, comment below. Subscribe. Remember, it doesn't cost anything to subscribe. It's free, right? Also, hit that little bell. That way, you'll get post notifications whenever there's a new video, and you won't miss out on any of them. Remember to follow my Instagram and Facebook, as well as, if you'd like to donate a dollar or two, paypal.me slash mowersandblowers. Really appreciate all the support. Also, to keep the videos coming every day, support the channel. Bye.