I have a Deere STX 38 that is 14 years old. It does the same thing when it's cold. I have found letting it run a full throttle for a few minutes takes care of the problem for me. I haven't figured out the cause, just a cure for mine. Hope this helps.

Make sure your deck spindles etc. rotate freely.

Since that engine is a Kohler Command Twin, head gaskets are always suspect.
See if one cylinder is weak by alternately disconnecting one spark plug wire and seeing how the engine runs. Compare the 2 cylinders against each other.
I recommend grounding the disconnected plug wire.

Ground the plug wire ??? Won't that short out the ignition coil ? If it's a single coil and no distributor, the spark would be lost on both cylinders.

Not sure that would be so good for the ignition module, either.

Peace.

Marco

Bill has the module thing covered. 2 coils. Grounding the plug wire keeps gremlins from killing the cd in the coil. Be 100% sure on the deck. Roll the belt off the PTO if you want to test it that way.

Thanks for the info, Tom. I am now informed.

Sorry about that, Bill.

Peace.

Marco

I will second the notion that you need to let it warm up before attempting to engage the blades.

My Kohler single does it too.

Thanks for the help guys.

Well after playing with everything, it ended up being a problem with the safety switch under the seat.

Seems to be a lot of us JD Kohler owners with the same problems. I wish I had a color coded schematic to help in hooking up wires that have been bypassed

When I pull the switch on my JD the PTO clicks and the engine starts to lug down. The Mowing deck is not even on the tractor. I got the tractor recently after a friend of mine passed away. It hasn't been used for several years and there has been a lot of tampering with seat switch etc.(completely disconected) where can I get info so I can hook things up right again?

if the deck is not even on it, then either you have a bad PTO or a bad safety switch. the wiring diagrams are on the deere parts website.

does it sound like it bogs down or like you just cut the key off? if it bogs, then look at the PTO. if it sounds just like when you kill it with the key, then try holding down teh yellow RIO button while you turn on the PTO. if it works, then the mower thinks you are in reverse so you need to look at the RIO.

I have a JD L130 that was doing the same thing. What it turned out to be was a $20 relay stuffed in on the right side of the motor, kind of right below the PTO switch. I have another for parts and changed the PTO clutch and switch until I finally spent $80 for JD to fix it. Had I known it would have taken me 5 minutes to fix the damned thing! Lol

We have a jd la145 that when we engage the pto the mower dies, in full throttle and everything. We don't see any relay "stuffed on the right side of the motor, kind of right below the pto switch." There are two wires that come off the coil where it comes off the battery positive, but that's it. There is something under that coil but we would have to take apart things (it is right next to the 20 amp fuse). We tried to see if it was the rio but that didn't seem to work (holding down the rio as we turned on the pto). Any thoughts?

Also when you engage the clutch manually, we thought we were under the impression that it would not move but this one moves freely. Could that have an influence on why it shuts down when we engage the pto?

Update:. We can get things to work if we manually engage the pto by putting the positive and negative on the pto connection and on the battery. Works like a champ so obviously something is up with the pto connection and it isn't the seat switch because we disconnected that. Fun times!

if your jd is designed like many out there today, simply disconnecting the seat sw will not bypass the intended function. actually a working seat sw must maintain the circuit and is designed to cut the engine off when no weight is present to engage the sw. a failed sw will do such; weight present or not.

We were able to manually engage the pto with the seat switch disconnected

I have a cub cadet an when I pull the PTO switch the PTO will not engage an it kills the motor no choke or bog down its like u cut power off going to the motor what is my problem

most likely will be a failed cl/brake switch or a seat safety switch - prolly the latter. As you just can't bypass that sw, suggest getting a new one and replace.

Electrical problem with the Rectifier. Lost it's internal ground and can not "tell" the alternator to produce the amps needed to operate much more than the head lights. Simply run a wire from one of the screws that hold the rectifier to the engine block and ground the other end to the frame. Problem solved. Common problem with Command and Courage engines. I have saw countless people waste hundreds of dollars trying fix this very problem when all is needed is a piece of 14 Ga wire.

What specifically is the rectifier? I have a JD G100 it runs good with plenty of power till pto is engaged. The tractor continues to run with blades spinning but idles down to about half throttle on it's own. Also battery light comes on on dash. Soon as pto is disengaged it goes back to running strong and dash light goes out. Do you think the wire from the (rectifier) is the issue and will solve my problem from what I have described. Thank you.

vevehaving

I have a john deere 186 lawn mower. The electric clutch is un hooked but still does when you try to engauge it. (backfires also)

What was the problem?