Hello
Sorry for the lack of an update.
I had taken the shrouds off the engine as it really needs cleaning due to the front seal leaking oil. I pulled the oil filter block off the the engine so i need to temporarily put that on to test for spark with that connection unplugged.
I did confirm the yellow is grounded, so guessing it will fire and I can trace back the issue there. For now, I am stuck just looking at it cause the hole where my wisdom tooth was yesterday, throbs if I bend over.
Thanks again. I will update when I can get back at it.

I did not get an answer to my question., When did this start to happen?

This started recently. I bought it last fall and it ran fine. A camp member was mowing and it quit, I went down the next weekend, it fired right up mowed 100 yards and died. There was no spark from then on. The bypassed seat switch was done by P.O.. I did some more testing today and found the yellow wire is only grounded when the ignition is off. when the ignition is on there is no continuity between the engine connection (chassis side) yellow wire and ground. Oddly (to me) there is no continuity whether the seat switch wires are clamped together or not. So I would guess it would either have spark now or the ignition module is gone?

See post #9 and it won't leave you guessing.

Yup just shutting off my 1811 and realized the yellow better be grounded or it wouldn't shut off

So, where was the problem ?? Ignition Switch or shorted Yellow Wire ??

:bigthink:

I did get a spark with the engine connection unplugged! I also got spark with the connection plugged in so that end of things must be intermittent, I have messed with the ignition switch, but I have not "fixed" anything on that side. So no clue what was wrong.
I will pursue that further when I get it back together.
I de-greased it today. I thought I had cleaned up some pretty messy cubs. This had all the shrouds on it when I bought it, but was pressure washed so what you could see (pretty much nothing that matters on there) looked great. There was some oil around the PTO, so I figured the seal was leaking but wasn't too worried about that. What I didn't know was it had been leaking for years, everything under the inner shrouds had an inch or more of sludge, all the cooling fins were filled with baked in grime and I was pulling hand fulls of crud out of the driveshaft area. anyway that is cleaner now so the front (rear) seal won't be as dirty a job. When that is done I will get back on the spark and will update.
I am still happy with this tractor. It is a lot less hours/wear than the 2 - 1811's I have at home, deck is quiet. I think it will make a good camp mower once it gets a little TLC. I also need to get the foot control engineered, I have not done a more modern conversion, 1250 is the newest cub I have made a pedal for.

Thanks again

My guess... Your coil drops out as soon as the engine gets it hot. Once your done doing your cleaning, I would run it on the bench to test. If you don't, you might be pulling it out a second time.

Thanks. I ordered one last night. My camp is owned by 5 guys. If you can believe it 3 are worse than i am with this stuff! so it needs to run reliably or i have to drive there to fix it. I also got the PTO off and removed the old seal and got that ordered.
How do i test that? I have access to a lab power supply that controls current, just unsure where to apply it and what current to test it at? I've done the coils on K Series Kohlers, but that is a more straight forward.

Hello
I got the 1811 put back together and it runs nice. The PTO side oil seal seems to be working.
Thanks for all the help with this.
Learning that unplugging the engine connections disables everything but the magneto will really come in handy for troubleshooting in the future, especially over the phone!
I did have one issue. I was just setting the gas tank up on the air filter w/o disconnecting the fuel lines. When I was done getting it back together I checked the oil as I had lost some removing the oil filter lines. Somehow I had a quart of 2 of gas in there. I was playing around with the ignition in the on position a fair amount. If I understand right the fuel line switch is electrical, so that would have been open, but I don't understand why the float would not have prevented the gas from continuously filling the float bowl and dumping into the carb? any thoughts