John Deere is one of the biggest names in the world of landscaping, with hundreds, if not thousands, of lawnmowers and garden tractors from you to choose from. They have earned a huge name for themselves for catering to a wide variety of users, both amateur and professional.
The price tag of their mowers is spread out, giving you plenty of options regardless of your budget constraints. If you are taking your first steps into the landscaping scene, John Deere is a great brand to go with.
And if you have the budget to spare, you can pick up a pretty high-end mower for yourself. Lawnmowers typically require a lot of maintenance and babying for them to work well.
If you don’t take care of it, over time, you will start noticing faulty components and declining performance. And once the ball gets rolling, there’s no stopping it until you fix up the issues properly. While many different components can go bad, I will talk about a specific one in this article.
Here, I will help you understand how to detect a bad fuel shut-off solenoid suffering in your John Deere riding lawnmower and give you a few helpful guidelines on how to fix the problem. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What’s A Fuel Shut-Off Solenoid?
Before I take you further into the diagnosis and fixes, let’s take a step back to the basics. I know, if you already understand the ins and outs of a lawnmower’s mechanical components, this might be old news for you. But many new users out there have absolutely zero ideas about what a fuel shut-off solenoid is or what it does.
A fuel shut-off solenoid also referred to as an engine stop solenoid, is present in all mechanical vehicles, including your lawnmowers or even your car. It is an electromagnetic component whose sole purpose is to stop the fuel flow to the engine allowing the engine to stop.
When you start your vehicle, the solenoid is in an energized position. As a result, the spring-loaded valve is retracted from its rest position, and fuel can pass through it to the engine. And when you stop your vehicle, the solenoid cuts off the fuel supply. It’s a pretty simple design when you think about it.
Typically, the solenoid is located in the fuel pump near the entrance. Sometimes, they are also positioned right before the injection pump. Since solenoids have no power themselves, it draws power energy from the battery to function. If the solenoid fails, it can disrupt the flow of fuel and cause a lot of weird issues in your lawnmower.
Signs of a Bad Fuel Solenoid on a John Deere Riding Mower
Now that you understand the basic function of a fuel solenoid let’s talk about what happens if it goes bad. Needless to say, it’s a vital part of the overall mechanical architecture of your lawnmower. And if it’s faulty, it can lead to a wide variety of issues with the lawnmower.
What’s even worse is that the signs of a bad solenoid often look similar to what would happen if you had a bad or clogged fuel filter. This can make it pretty difficult to diagnose the problem and pinpoint its root cause.
With that said, here are some of the signs that your John Deere riding mower has a malfunctioning fuel shut-off solenoid.
1. Trouble Cold-Starting
Cold starting an engine can be a messy affair. When an engine is completely cold in a lawnmower, typically during the winter, it can have a lot of trouble firing up. The winter cold can prevent the fuel from getting into the combustion chamber. This means starting the engine takes quite a while.
And once you get the engine running, it can shut off on its own, which can get quite annoying. You could try manually turning the engine off and back on again to fix this issue. However, if your engine has a bad shut-off solenoid, you won’t be able to restart the engine like this.
2. Sudden Engine Shut off
If your engine suddenly shuts off for no reason at all, then that means it’s not receiving adequate fuel. This can mean a problem in the fuel line or a clogged fuel filter, or even old, stale oil in the tank. So, you should always check for these issues first if your engine abruptly shuts down.
However, a faulty solenoid can also be the culprit here. If a defective solenoid is present in your John Deere mower, then it can cut off the fuel flow to the engine, suddenly causing the engine to shut down prematurely. So, if the fuel line and fuel quality seem fine, then this issue might be credited to a bad solenoid in the system.
3. Unsteady Idling
It’s usually a good idea to let your engine idle for a minute or two after you fire up the engine. This allows the engine to warm up properly so that you won’t face any weird issues in performance once you get started with mowing your lawn. However, if your lawnmower has a bad solenoid, the vehicle will act up in this situation.
A faulty fuel shut-off solenoid will cause the engine to shut down when idling while letting out a peculiar noise. The noise is what’s indicative of the problem in most cases. It implies that the solenoid got unenergized and switched off, which resulted in a sudden cut of fuel and engine shut off.
4. Trouble Accelerating
It’s not always black and white with the solenoid; sometimes, there’s a grey point. Since a faulty solenoid usually means that your vehicle’s fuel supply is cut off, some people fail to detect the problem when it presents itself as acceleration difficulties.
In some situations, a solenoid can get stuck in a halfway position where it delivers just enough fuel to keep the engine running but suffers when you put the engine under stress. Since the engine will not receive the additional fuel that it needs to push high RPMs, you will notice acceleration trouble in this situation.
So, if your engine is struggling to perform at high speeds, there’s always a chance that the fuel shut-off solenoid has gone bad or clogged up. So, keep that in mind before you chalk it up as a transmission problem.
How To Test For A Bad Fuel Shut Off Solenoid In Your John Deere Lawnmower?
While it can be difficult to detect a fuel shut-off solenoid problem from the signs alone, there is actually a pretty fast and efficient way to test for it. For that, you need to remove it, though, so open up your mower, locate the solenoid, and take it out.
Most fuel shut-off solenoids, though rated for 12 volts, can be activated with a 9-volt battery. However, you should still double-check the instruction manual to be sure. If it doesn’t support 9 volts, you need to arrange a 12-volt power source.
Similar to light bulbs, solenoids can be connected to the power source either way as long as power travels through it. So, you don’t have to fuss about things like positive or negative polarity. You can connect it any way you like to the battery with cables.
Before you connect it to the battery, though, do a quick inspection of the mechanism. You need to push and pull the center pin and look for friction. There’s always a chance that the solenoid is simply clogged by debris and cleaning it should restore it. However, if that doesn’t fix it, you need to test it with the battery.
To do that, connect it to the battery and energize it. With a working component, the solenoid moves inside the housing when energized and comes back out when power is cut. If your solenoid does not respond to the battery, then that means it’s faulty, and you need to replace it.
Since solenoids are a mechanical component, there’s really no way to fix it. So, if you have a bad solenoid, then your only option is to replace it. Thankfully, these are pretty cheap, and if you have a faulty solenoid in your hand, it shouldn’t cost you too much to replace it.
Final Thoughts
The hardest part of fixing a fuel shut-off solenoid problem in your John Deere riding lawnmower is figuring out the problem. And once you understand how to look for this issue, you can fix it pretty easily without the need to take your mower to a professional garage.
I hope my article on John Deere fuel shut-off solenoid problems could help you identify and fix these issues in your riding lawnmower. Good luck!