Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Deere 325 Starting problems

I have 17 hp kaw motor on my deere and it starts fine. After running it for a while you can not turn it off because it will not start. It turns over but will back fire out the exhaust. I have changed the plug, fuel filter and redone the carb. I am getting ready to pull the fly wheel and I dont feel that is it because it runs fine until I turn it off. Any ideas would be great.

In my experience, this is usually caused by the igniter. There is no test procedure for the igniter. If you buy a replacement, make sure it is a kawasaki igniter, not aftermarket labeled as deere equipment. The aftermarket ones don't last long.

Thanks. I saw this in one other posting and was thinking about replacing it. Do they offer any of these ignitors for Kaw's on line????

I haven't looked for them online. I usually order them from my local deere dealer, but I give them specific instruction to get me one from Kawasaki, not deere. I don't carry Kawasaki parts, so I get them from the Deere dealer. The deere dealer here also knows that the original ones are better, so they stock them AND the deere ones (the deere ones are cheaper, and some folks want the cheapest regardless). The kawasaki ones have a stamped odd-looking logo on them while the aftermarket ones are blank.

Thanks for the reply, I am going to the dealer today to get one.

Bought new igniter and it dont even start now. Have ordered coil and it should come in tomorrow. Dealer said igniter is only made from Kaw because of the issues they had with them. Sounds kinda funny because the one I got was in a John Deere bag and did not have the same markings of the old one.
Will update as I move forward.

Try the old igniter first, before buying a new coil. I'd be pretty surprised if the coil just went bad all of a sudden...especially since you said the new igniter came in a deere bag and doesn't have the same markings. The kawasaki ones have a black logo on them like your old igniter, and they come in kawasaki packaging. The deere ones cost forty something, but the kawasaki ones run around $70. I have had the deere ones bad right out of the bag on more than one occasion. On the other occasions where they worked, they never worked long.

I've only seen one or two coils go bad on kawasakis ever. Not to say it can't happen, but I still think you have igniter trouble.

Tried old igniter and it started fine. After it got warm, it would not start again. I am thinking th coil is going bad. I have also changed the wire from the coil to the plug just in case the wire had issues. Nothing changed.
I still think I got the shaft on the igniter and I am going to call the dealer and let them know about it. They said they do not let you return ignition components after they have been openned but I will work on them. This one was $56, maybe it was the Deere one.
I am also going to call another dealer about the different igniters and see if the orgional dealer I deal with is telling me a line.
Thanks for your help!

Yup, you got one of the bad ones.

You can change the coil, but I'm sitting firm on my bet that it's the igniter. Like I said, there's no test procedure for it, but just from my experience, that's what it sounds like. Especially considering the backfiring you described.

Well, I have changed the coil and put the new igniter on and it still would not run. I put the old igniter on with the new coil and it worked fine until it got warm. I took the new igniter to the dealer and we put it on a tractor there and it woked fine.
The service tech and I talked for quite a while and he said this was new. The only other time he had seen something like this was when the stator had issues or the keyway was broken from backfiring. I am going to check them tonight.
Still digging.....

Broken keyway??? from backfiring? So he thinks a backfire is going to force the engine rotation backwards violently enough to ruin the keyway? Save the time, your keyway is fine. Same with the stator, which has nothing to do with the ignition. Why would changing igniters affect operation of the keyway or stator? The key itself could shear, although I've never seen it happen on a kawasaki and I've worked on many many of them. But that wouldn't be affected by changing the igniter.

You have a coil now, but still not a kawasaki igniter. You might try chasing the problem with several parts, but in the end I think your problem will be solved when you get one. (I'm trying to lead a horse to water....)

Well, here it is. Being lead to water was causing confussion for me. After I got working on the tractor, I tracked it down to a volatge regulator issue and now it is replaced. The mower now runs fine.

That's a new one for me. I've never heard of a regulator affecting the ignition system (backfiring) or causing the engine to not start when warm. Unless, I read the posts wrong and it would not turn over well when hot and it was related to a weak battery and also affected the fuel solenoid operation (if so equipped). Does this engine have a fuel solenoid?

New one on me too. The ignition system is independent of the charging system, so maybe during the course of repair, something else was moved or changed. In any case, given the same description as the posts above, I'd stand firm on the igniter. Sorry if it confuses you. Thanks for the update, and glad to hear you got it going.