gilson lawn tractor

[ghost civic]

just bought this Gilson for $75. Should run with a carb cleaning and a new battery. Basic plan is a pulley swap and foot throttle so I can take it out on some trails.
And then when snow comes, I will add chains and make a simple plow to clear my driveway.
It seems like a pretty beastly machine. I had taken my '95 S10 to pick it up (and a john deere riding mower) but once I put both on the truck it was clear the leaf springs were not happy and could break!

Anyone have experience with these? I will have to clean it off to find some ID, but I am pretty sure it is a GT18E.

Oh, I plan to paint it military green

 

[Poboy kartman]

Can't even begin to help....but that's cool....in a "Kelly Wood" kinda way....

Instead of "Sarge" .....that front end could be "major" !!!!

 

[ghost civic]

I don't know if anyone can help on this, but here goes:

I got the tractor to start and run. However, when I tried to turn it off...it stayed running. As far as I could tell, the wires to the key switch are correct.
so, I was left to test and see what happens. There were a couple unused wires (there had been a light switch at one time) and I tried touching these to the frame but nothing happened.

There were 2 wires that went to a on/off switch that was not on the dash, but rather under the hood. I thought maybe this switch was a home brew kill switch. It had a green and a white wire going to it. The switch however was stuck. So I used my pliers to jump the 2 leads...and the motor died.

BUT, it wont start again.

I followed the green wire from the switch and it goes to the head lights. The other wire, a white one, goes somewhere on the front of the motor. It is hard to tell because 2 yellow and 1 white wire go into the harness at the back, but at the front 3 yellow wires exit the harness. Id assume the white wire has been changed to yellow due to age. But the end result is that I don't know where the white wire goes.

Now Im worried I fried something in the ignition/spark system.

so, any idea?

 

[ML-TOYS]

Cut one of the wires to that switch and try starting

 

[ghost civic]

I made a new pos wire/switch to the fuel solenoid.
That got it to start, but tuning off the switch didn't cut the fuel. It kept running.

when I turned the key to the off postion (figured out which wire was correct mag kill wire) that shut off the motor but not the fuel and so it flooded the motor and it wouldn't start back up for a while.

Not sure if fuel solenoid is gummed up or what. Sadly, it isn't the type that just screws into the carb. I cant actually tell how it is supposed to come off the carb. Will have to look at it more and figure it out.

 

[ghost civic]

oh, gave it a quick coat of paint