hi, i have a westwood T1100 with a kawasaki FB460 engine and as the body of the mower wasnt useable i swapped the full engine and wiring loom into another mower but when i came to wiring the engine back up i had forgot which wire goes onto the coil and i cant figure it out as i dont want to damage anything, i can get everything to work, starter motor, headlights, lights on the dash but i cant get a spark at all, can i please have some advice that will show/tell me which wires needs to go where

max lamaq, May 2008

I have the same tractor,
Send me some pics of what you need, I'll look on mine.

panjas51 @ gmail.com

panjas, July 2008

NO!!!!! If you route battery voltage to the coil you will fry it instantly. You need to find a wire in the loom that is GROUNDED when the switch is OFF and open circuit in all other positions.

There will be a single wire on the engine that disappears under the cowling - this is the magneto cut-off wire. Disconnect this from the rest of the mower. Crank engine - it should start. Ground disconnected wire - engine should stop. This is the wire that goes to the grounding terminal on the ingition switch.

Any other wires coming out of the engine will be to do with the charging system, and the connections will be model specific, but typically one is grounded, another will connect to battery +ve, and there may be others that run stuff like lights, electric blade clutch etc when (and ONLY when) engine is running.

phil_saunders@bigfoot.com

Phil Saunders, June 2008

Do you have any wire going to the coil now? Do you have any wires leftover even though everything else is hooked up and working? Did you start the motor before you stripped the mower to know it would and that nothing had gone bad like...a coil? Maybe you've already tried this but here goes in case not. Assuming you've everything installed including the ignition switch/battery, use a test light and find a wire from the switch that's hot when the key is turned to both the start AND run positions. That should go to the coil but make sure this wire also becomes dead when the ignition switch is turned off. Just an idea of how I'd do it.

Poot, June 2008