Most likely you have a dead/bad battery and until that is taken care of, you are very possibly throwing away money.on a new solenoid etc.

Most likely, that tractor only has a 3 AMP charging system.
It would take 10-12 hours of high speed running to fully charge a good but fully discharged battery.

Get the battery charged and LOAD tested first.

Your current battery is so low, it's basically "sucking" everything the alternator is putting out. Slow speed and you don't have enough power to supply the carb fuel solenoid and it drops out.

A quick test- When running at high speed, do the headlights work?
IF they do, the charging system is MOST likely OK.
The lights operate of a separate AC lighting circuit and only work when running.

hi bill,

thanks for the reply. whats odd is the the machine ran even when the battery was dead. it would require a jump if it sat for a few weeks. it was after the last jump that it stopped working. reason I say its not working is because the ammeter is not showing that it is charging.

I will check the headlights as you mention I think it runs off a magneto that also charges the battery?

The magneto generates spark for the plugs. Just like in a walk behind lawn mower.
The alternator produces power to charge the battery (through a diode to give a pulsating DC) and a separate winding without a diode to produce AC for the lights. Lights don't care if it's AC or DC.

This post was edited by bill_kapaun on Mon, Jun 30, 14 at 22:45

hi bill,

its all fixed! all along it was the starter solenoid. It had me fooled cuz when I turn the key to start, you could hear it click like the solenoid was closing. I bench tested it an the coil had continuity but when actuated, it was not closing the loop between the battery and the stater cable. I put in a new start solenoid and she cranked over AND it fixed the charging problem.
thanks for all your help!