John Deere Gator 4x2 worked now no electric

[fibrostic]

Got a beat up old, maybe 97, John Deere Gator 4x2 that had a bad engine. Bought a new engine from small engine warehouse, a FE250D-AS11. put it in and hooked it up wrong and blew the coil. Pulled the old coil out of the old engine, swapped it out and fixed the wiring mistake, engine fired right up. Drove around for a quick test drive and noticed i needed some adjustments. I adjusted the throttle cable and it died while i was tweaking it. I didnt think anything about it, now i have no power at all. No lights on dash, no starter, nothing......

 

[Raincoast]

Believe it or not, complete electrical failure is usually a LOT easier to locate & fix than the pesky little problems that come & go.
You sound pretty handy. (After making sure the battery is not fried) Just grab a meter & start from the battery. Keep on moving down the line until you find the fault. I find it useful to connect a long piece of green wire to the negative terminal. Hook it securely to the neg meter lead & use it when checking for power... It's a 100% reliable ground, which you don't always have on an old piece of equipment that may have dirt or rust in the way of a clean connection.
With no power anywhere, I might start at the ignition switch. Especially if you had a crossed wire somewhere when you put the new engine in.
I'm not familiar with the Gator, but I'd think it has a pretty simple electrical system.
Some systems have a fusible link in the battery hot cable (basically a big fat fuse) that's the kind of thing I'd be looking for.
If you don't already have one, now's the time to find a service manual.
Good luck! With an organized search pattern, you'll probably find the problem quite quickly.
Please let us know how it goes.
Cheers. Dan

 

[fibrostic]

Update:
Go the electric on again. Traced from battery to starter and now we have power to the key and starter. After adjusting the loose choke cable, she starts up just fine. Now i need to install a real battery, just ned to find what the rght one is.