electrical issues on MTD rider with tecumseh

[38racing]

Neigbour's daughter and SIL were gifted this 700 series from their neighbour who was moving away. Told there were issues. Suggested it was 2 or 3 tears old, lol, as tecumseh finished in 04 or 05. Apparently he had it running once but now it's blowing fuses whenever he tries to start it. I took a look a few nights ago and now it's in my yard. What I know so far. He bought a new battery. During his tries he managed to burn out a nice section of the battery post. Darn, haven't noted whether pos or neg. He showed me where he had spliced a new section of wire in the feed from the alternator. DUH, I'm slipping. Just typing now that I realize that could have been the diode. That might explain blowing fuses eh. Well I should get back to it before putting much more here. I will say the rest I know at this point. There's no evidence of any burned wiring other than his splice to stator. I figured that enough current to burn the post would have burned a bunch of low gauge wiring unless overload was only in the circuit from battery to solenoid to starter. I had started to think a short in activation cycle in starter solenoid was blowing fuse and maybe providing a high resistance in starter circuit. Despite cleaned exact level oil I wanted to rule out hydrolock causing starter over draw so we pulled plug and I just attached a booster pack to crank. It cranked fine but smoked at the fuse. Loaded it on the trailer at that point. Going to disconnect the stator from the circuit tomorrow and see if the smoking fuse doesn't happen. Also heading to the tecumseh manual. will update

[KE4AVB]

Well finding a wiring diagram for the mower is going to be like finding hen teeth. But there is a 700 series service manual in the MTD downloads that might help somewhat.

But I hate getting in a piece of equipment where someone had no business any where near it been working on it.

[38racing]

First challenge to test stator was to get it running. Would fire a bit on carb cleaner so I figured a carb/fuel issue. First step flush tank and new lines as fuel appeared watery in tank bottom . Added new fuel but still didn't run on it. Verified that abs was retracting and pump was pumping. Since I had a new aftermarket carb I put it on. Still only a bit of fire on carb cleaner. New plug. Verified spark with the tester with large gap. Definitely jumped it but was it bright enough? Checked coil gap. It was .014 so redid to .010. Of course didn't try starting it but went on to check valves and compression. Compression 110 and I could see release bump on the exhaust. However spec on valves is. 004 and both were at least .008. Adjusted them. Now it fired right up. After verifying that I had 26 volts ac from the stator I replaced the splice with a briggs diode. After a few bad butt connections were resolved I got so battery voltage did increase, albeit slowly , from prestart value. Only strange thing is I choke it but it doesn't fire up long enough for me to unchoke (move throttle back to full) and stay running. I just leave throttle at full ,no choke, and crank again and it fires up.