#&%* Stupid Kill Switch

[Iplayfarmer]

Actually the title of this thread should be #&%* stupid me. This thread is purely for the humorous enjoyment of the TBN crowd.

Back in February a friend borrowed my 4-wheeler to plow some snow. A few days after he returned it I went to move it and it wouldn't start. I did enough trouble shooting to find it had no spark, and left it at that for a while. I kept wondering what the problem was, and I kept looking for an opportunity to dig into it deeper.

Tonight I was shooting the bull and sat down on the 4-wheeler for a minute. Mid conversation I looked down an noticed that the kill switch was off. Sure enough, as soon as I switched it on, the thing fired up and ran great.

I never use the kill switch. I never even think of the kill switch. I agree with my wife. She said it's a good thing I never found the time to do more troubleshooting or I'd have had the thing in a hundred pieces in the garage before I'd noticed the kill switch was off.

Moral of the story (again)... Check the easy stuff first before you go to the more complicated stuff.

 

[terry.dinerman]

Brother, I FEEL your pain....

OK .... I admit it ... I have the seat-kill switch on my JD870 wired "ON" so I can run it while dismounted...

Wasted the best part of a morning scratching my head and taking parts off and on trying to figure out why the darn thing wouldnt start...till I sat down in the seat....

FOO!

I am right behind you with trying the simple stuff...

Terry

 

[irvingj]

Exactly the same thing happened to my XL250 motorcycle! I had it at school, a kid was looking it over closely (with permission)...when I went to leave, it wouldn't start. Mind you, this is kick-start ONLY, no electric.

After working up a good sweat in our parking lot, then rolling it down a hill and dumping the clutch, borrowing a pick-up to load it up and haul it home, going through.... well, you get the idea.

The next day I was whining to a friend, still scratching my head, as he went through the littany of possibilities. "Yep, did that. Yep, checked that. Nope, that's not the problem." Finally he says, "Kill switch?"

:ashamed::ashamed: Yep. Started up on the first kick after it was turned back on. First bike I ever had with a kill switch, never use it, never thought about it.

Learned that lesson well!:laughing::laughing:

 

[mrmikey]

Did something similar last year on my tractor while mowing.
I was mowing the far side of the yard furthest away from the garage and my cell rang, my daughter, so I shut the tractor off. Didn't want anything in particular so we shot the bull for a couple of minutes and then I went to start the rig...nuttin. Before this, the starter was giving me some grief so i thought it finally croaked.
Well crap the **** starter finally gave up the ghost. I got a stick and gave the starter a few well placed cracks thinking it'd start one more time so I could get back to the garage anyway but no luck.
Hoof my way up to the garage to grab me wrenches and get back and start to take the shrouds off to get at the starter. So I get the shrouds of and proceed to crack the starter a bit more vigously. while I'm doing this I think to myself "self, it's odd you can't even hear the solenoid clicking in". At which point I reach down and turn the mower drive clutch switch/ignition interlock off.....Mike

 

[Don87]

Did something similar last year on my tractor while mowing.
I was mowing the far side of the yard furthest away from the garage and my cell rang, my daughter, so I shut the tractor off. Didn't want anything in particular so we shot the bull for a couple of minutes and then I went to start the rig...nuttin. Before this, the starter was giving me some grief so i thought it finally croaked.
Well crap the **** starter finally gave up the ghost. I got a stick and gave the starter a few well placed cracks thinking it'd start one more time so I could get back to the garage anyway but no luck.
Hoof my way up to the garage to grab me wrenches and get back and start to take the shrouds off to get at the starter. So I get the shrouds of and proceed to crack the starter a bit more vigously. while I'm doing this I think to myself "self, it's odd you can't even hear the solenoid clicking in". At which point I reach down and turn the mower drive clutch switch/ignition interlock off.....Mike

I did that so many times with my old Cub Cadet, with that electric PTO..................:laughing::laughing:

 

[RandyT]

had a customer at my mower repair shop a few years back that started to mow his yard and the neighbor came over so he shut the mower off, went to restart it and it wouldn't start. had the neighbor try it with no avail. thought the battery had give up the ghost so went to walmart and got a new battery but didn't help. borrowed neighbors trailer to haul it 25 miles to my shop. i didn't even unstrap it, just jumped on and started mower. try mower several times and it always started. customer got on mower and tried it three times and on the third attempt figured out he forgot to push the clutch down to start the mower.

 

[crash325]

Much SAFER tractors and ATV's are on the way. With so many people getting hurt these things need to be a lot safer. Seat safety, neutral safety & brake safety just aren't doing the job.

Soon the Ignition Switch will be eliminated and your tractor or ATV will be much safer. :laughing:

 

[jinman]

When training new electronic technicians in the US Navy back in the '70s, one of my favorite troubleshooting tricks was to remove a light bulb to simulate a burned out indicator bulb. I'd say at least 75% of the trainees would see the light out and start troubleshooting the system instead of just reaching up and pressing the "press-to-test" feature of the indicator. By the time they left school, checking for burned out bulbs was the first thing they would all do. Today, I'd bet there aren't even 10% of the incandescent bulbs on equipment that there used to be. Most are probably LED/LCD displays that almost never fail.:thumbsup:

 

[wedge40]

Been there done that.
Cub Cadet with PTO switch. I had the snowblower in an old barn about 150' from the house. I'm a pretty good procrastinator so I never started getting the tractor ready for winter till we got good snow. Well it snowed about 8" and I put the wheel weights on then headed out to the barn to put the blower on. Lined the think up and when to move it forward to get things latched and the Cub wouldn't start. It was about 10 degrees outside and the barn provided cover at most. I played with that thing for two days, even ran extension cords out there to use a halogen lamp to try and warm things up. At one point I look down and FINALLY notice the PTO switch is on. Turn it off and Cub started right up. From that day on I put the key in the ignition and then always check to make sure the PTO is off. :laughing:

Wedge

 

[johnrex62]

In the early 80's I was working at a little computer store that built clone PCs. One weekend the sales floor was swamped and one of our technicians was helping us out on by answering the phones. After a long time on one call he interrupted us to ask for help with a customer.

It seemed that she had picked up her new computer a couple hours before and when she tried to set it up at home it would not work. Our technician had put her computer together personally and had tested it extensively before it left the store and felt he had a personal stake in getting it working for her now, but had gone over every test he could think of short of having her take it apart.

He asked us if we could think of anything else to have her do before she brought it back in for him to work on it.

We started our standard phone drill for him, Are there any lights on? No.
Is it plugged in? C'mon guys, she's not an idiot.
Ask her anyway, we said. Yes, it is plugged in.
Is it plugged into the wall or the outlet strip? The outlet strip.
Is the light on the outlet strip on? No.
Is the outlet strip plugged in? Yes.
Check the wall outlet the strip is plugged into to see if it has power. Uh, nevermind. She had the outlet strip plugged into itself.



Yes, NEVER overlook the simple stuff first.

 

[retiredmgn]

Uh, nevermind. She had the outlet strip plugged into itself.
[/I]


Yes, NEVER overlook the simple stuff first.

The problem is somewhere between the keyboard and the chair.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Thanks for the replies. It glad to know that my mistake was not the first stupid thing ever done.

With my ATV, one thing that threw me off was that the starter motor would still run even though the kill switch was off and there was no spark. I'm used to my lawn mower where every safety relay keeps the starter from running.

 

[dcyrilc]

Thanks for the replies. It glad to know that my mistake was not the first stupid thing ever done.

With my ATV, one thing that threw me off was that the starter motor would still run even though the kill switch was off and there was no spark. I'm used to my lawn mower where every safety relay keeps the starter from running.

You're not the first and definately won't be the last.

I just got through looking at a problem my son was having with a game he bought for his computer. Min requirements are Win95/98 (NT not supported). Certainly not going to run on his XP machine.:laughing:

 

[johnrex62]

You're not the first and definately won't be the last.

I just got through looking at a problem my son was having with a game he bought for his computer. Min requirements are Win95/98 (NT not supported). Certainly not going to run on his XP machine.:laughing:

Did you try running it in compatibilty mode? Sometimes you can get them to run in 95 compat mode with separate address spaces.

 

[silvertramp]

Thanks for the replies. It glad to know that my mistake was not the first stupid thing ever done.

With my ATV, one thing that threw me off was that the starter motor would still run even though the kill switch was off and there was no spark. I'm used to my lawn mower where every safety relay keeps the starter from running.

My new to me at the time '79 Goldwing does that. My other bikes won't turn over with the kill switch on. Had me hornswoggled for a bit. @#$%&.

 

[Lightnsound]

I did the same thing with my pressure washer. Was pulling on that cord for quite a while. Checked fuel. Checked throttle. Checked choke. Checked spark, no spark. Took a couple more minutes to find the switch was off. Flipped switch and it started on the next pull.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Exactly the same thing happened to my XL250 motorcycle! I had it at school, a kid was looking it over closely (with permission)...when I went to leave, it wouldn't start. Mind you, this is kick-start ONLY, no electric.

After working up a good sweat in our parking lot, then rolling it down a hill and dumping the clutch, borrowing a pick-up to load it up and haul it home, going through.... well, you get the idea.

The next day I was whining to a friend, still scratching my head, as he went through the littany of possibilities. "Yep, did that. Yep, checked that. Nope, that's not the problem." Finally he says, "Kill switch?"

:ashamed::ashamed: Yep. Started up on the first kick after it was turned back on. First bike I ever had with a kill switch, never use it, never thought about it.

Learned that lesson well!:laughing::laughing:

Way back when I was a youngin', my hobby was racing dirt bikes. (enduros and hare scrambles) Most of my early experience was on European bikes (Penton's and Husquvarnas. In the early 70's, when the Honda Elsinores were introduced, I made the transition to Japanese bikes. They were lighter, more reliable, more power, and much better suspension. My first Honda was a 250 Elsinore. They were light years ahead of the technology of European woods bikes! I couldn't wait to show it off!

So...I decided to ride the new Honda over to a friends house. I was gonna take back roads since the bike wasn't quite street legal. Now you gotta remember, I'm an old farm boy, so I ALWAYS had on my John Deere cap. I fired up the Honda, put my helmet on, raised the seat (it raised up to access a small tool box) and threw my hat under the seat, put the seat back down and took off. I went about a mile and the bike started running bad. It finally fouled the spark plug and died. I pulled over, laid down my helmet, put the JD hat back on, swapped plugs, and repeated the hat under the seat thing again. Made it another mile or so and the same results. After the 3rd time it happened, I took a little more time to evaluate the situation before taking off.

That's when I realized the hat was ALSO covering the intake opening to the air box, shutting off air to the engine.

Stuck the hat under my shirt and off I went! It was 20 years later before I ever told that story to anyone....

 

[arsenix2001]

Same here, pulled the killcswitch lanyard out of my bass boats throttle with my foot by accident. Spent 20 minutes at the ramp checking fuses before I saw it. :ashamed:

 

[dcyrilc]

Same here, pulled the killcswitch lanyard out of my bass boats throttle with my foot by accident. Spent 20 minutes at the ramp checking fuses before I saw it. :ashamed:

I have a better one than that. When I was a teenager, my folks bought a 26ft cabin cruiser. On its maiden voyage my father forgot to put in the bildge drain plug. After about 15 minutes of trying to figure out why it wouldn't get up on to a plane, he realized what the problem was. I was funny watching him try to find the plug and then go over the side to put it in.:laughing:

 

[k0ua]

Way back when I was a youngin', my hobby was racing dirt bikes. (enduros and hare scrambles) Most of my early experience was on European bikes (Penton's and Husquvarnas. In the early 70's, when the Honda Elsinores were introduced, I made the transition to Japanese bikes. They were lighter, more reliable, more power, and much better suspension. My first Honda was a 250 Elsinore. They were light years ahead of the technology of European woods bikes! I couldn't wait to show it off!

So...I decided to ride the new Honda over to a friends house. I was gonna take back roads since the bike wasn't quite street legal. Now you gotta remember, I'm an old farm boy, so I ALWAYS had on my John Deere cap. I fired up the Honda, put my helmet on, raised the seat (it raised up to access a small tool box) and threw my hat under the seat, put the seat back down and took off. I went about a mile and the bike started running bad. It finally fouled the spark plug and died. I pulled over, laid down my helmet, put the JD hat back on, swapped plugs, and repeated the hat under the seat thing again. Made it another mile or so and the same results. After the 3rd time it happened, I took a little more time to evaluate the situation before taking off.

That's when I realized the hat was ALSO covering the intake opening to the air box, shutting off air to the engine.

Stuck the hat under my shirt and off I went! It was 20 years later before I ever told that story to anyone....

Alright as long as we are telling funny stories about "scooters" I will fess up too. A long time ago, I was in a store, and noticed the time and wanted to get home in a hurry, so I go out and jump on my old Honda 450, which has the ignition key under your left butt cheek, but also has a fork lock up on the forks, Well I had locked the forks but the handlebars were pointing at the angle I wanted to take off in as I wanted to do a 180 turn. So I fire her up, kicked it in gear and took off smartly, when I went to right her up, she went one way and I went the other. I got up to my feet quickly, and watched the bike slide to a nice stop on its side. I picked it up, unlocked the forks this time, and looked around sheepishly to make sure no one had seen this fiasco, and took off for home, a little wiser.

James K0UA