L3010 won't start, no dash lights Please help!

[donr100]

Hello everyone. Today I went to start "ol reliable" and it started to crank. The key slipped from my finger and I quickly re-engaged it. Everything went dead. No dash lights or any signs of life. I've checked the fuses in the fuse block as well as the 40amp fuse near the starter. None are blown. Battery is fully charged. Is there another fuse I'm unaware of? Does anyone have any other ideas? Does anyone know how to bypass the ignition switch in case I toasted it? I'm heading back out to start all the systematic stuff: battery test, ground, etc. It just seems odd that it cranked over well until the key slip happened. Makes me think I power surged something. Thanks in advance.

 

[Roadworthy]

I'd start by cleaning the battery terminals and the terminals on the cables.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Check the ground connection at the tractor.
Did you test for power on both sides of the fuses? Wouldn't be the first time I heard "but they looked good"

 

[donr100]

Update...checked the battery and cleaned all connections. Yes I do have power on both sides of the fuseblock, including the 40amp near the starter. I've discovered that if I leave it sit for 10-15 minutes the dash lights come back on when I turn the key to on. When I try to start it I hear the solenoid click (one solid click) and then no cranking happens- the lights go out and the system appears dead again. Then I leave it sit for awhile, the lights come back, and it does the same thing again. I put a newer and known good battery in the tractor with same result. Just for grins I ran a jumper cable from my diesel truck to that newer battery just to be sure I had lots of amps. Same thing. I'm really baffled as to why the dash lights go out- they don't dim. They just go out. Makes me wonder if there's some sort of a circuit overload device that resets when it cools (like on a power saw) but I've never heard of that and really that makes no sense to me. Any thoughts out there? Thank you to those that added their 2 cents already. I'm all ears...

 

[Jeremy126]

I had the same happen and it was the + cable was bad at battery checked by running a jumper cable from the positive to the positive at starter just be careful not to touch anything else with it. You can do the negative to the block next if needed. Cut about 5in off my positive cable and a new ending it started working great. Passed owner didn’t know to use the decompression lever and was jumping it off thinking it was the battery was weak so was pulling a lot of amps through a some what weak cable making it burn up the wire at the weak spot.

 

[wendol]

Had the similar situation with my L3010......went through checking all the things recommended.

As it turned out it was a faulty starter relay part #35800-75070.

 

[donr100]

Well, I've got it fixed. I'm still confused by the symptoms, but I'll take the solution. Today I bypassed the ground cable and it fired right up. The ground is a braided flat cable that disappears under the frame. I'm assuming it's corroded or something. The take-away here for any future people looking for resolution is if your symptoms include the entire light bank going dead and then randomly coming back on later, only to do it again- check the battery, the cables, and the connections. I really appreciate the suggestions from everyone. They all in part helped to steer me to the final conclusion. Part of which is don't expect electrical problems to actually make sense...Now I've got some work to do...

 

[RCW]

Don - thanks for reporting back. Doing so does help those in the future, as you said. [emoji41]

Glad you got it sorted out. Those ground wire gremlins can cause some funky problems, but right now I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know! [emoji15]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kevinj]

Well, I've got it fixed. I'm still confused by the symptoms, but I'll take the solution. Today I bypassed the ground cable and it fired right up. The ground is a braided flat cable that disappears under the frame. I'm assuming it's corroded or something. The take-away here for any future people looking for resolution is if your symptoms include the entire light bank going dead and then randomly coming back on later, only to do it again- check the battery, the cables, and the connections. I really appreciate the suggestions from everyone. They all in part helped to steer me to the final conclusion. Part of which is don't expect electrical problems to actually make sense...Now I've got some work to do...

See post 3.

You had a classic symptom of a bad ground.

Very easy & quick to find with a volt meter or by your method.