• This community needs YOUR help today!

    With the ever-increasing fees of maintaining our vibrant community (servers, software, domains, email), we need help.
    We need more Supporting Members today.

    Please invest back into this community to help spread our love and knowledge of all aspects of IH Cub Cadet and other garden tractors.

    Why Join?

    • Exclusive Access: Gain entry to private forums.
    • Special Perks: Enjoy enhanced account features that enrich your experience, including the ability to disable ads.
    • Free Gifts: Sign up annually and receive exclusive IH Cub Cadet Tractor Forum decals directly to your door!

    This is your chance to make a difference. Become a Supporting Member today:

    Upgrade Now

I'm bummed out.

IH Cub Cadet Forum

Help Support IH Cub Cadet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

John Halper

Active member
Joined
Aug 21, 2020
Messages
29
Location
Atco N.J.
I thought for sure I would get the answer I need, on here. I got some good ideas from this site. It's been very helpful most times. But I needed help on the wiring on 1862 & got nothing. Got a lot of views. But now answers. Took out a 18 magnum & replaced in with 20 command. I don't understand the wiring. How to match up the tractor wiring to the command wiring. I can't expand the wiring diagrams. Big enough so I can read them. I don't want to short something out. Someone got to know the answer to this. Also, to put it in simple terms. like blue to yellow. Red to yellow with black stripe & so on. I'm just not good with wiring. Thankfully for any usable help.
 
John, I have similar issues..This helps me sometimes.Find wiring dia. on comp. and copy each one.Take them to a local print shop and they can blow them up to any size you want .I'm lucky from small town ,I can go to local office and for $1. they will copy and expand ..You can't expect guys to remember the colors of all the wires we deal with..
 
I would think you would need to compare the wiring diagram from the tractor your going into against the tractor the 20hp command came out of. Or at least trace the wires on the current engine harness to where they go and look at the wiring diagram on the 1862.

Or if the diagrams make your head hurt Trace the wires in the 1862 tractor harness from the point they plug into he engine wiring harness on the original engine. Then hook those wires to the harness on the 20 that go to the same function. Taking some time there are several workable methods of figuring this out. I believe the 20 command is a magneto ignition engine as is the magnum that came in the 1862. So I would think the wiring should be pretty similar?

I can't help you on enlarging the wiring diagram. I don't recall having that trouble when I was fighting one of my 1862's a couple years ago.

I know I can't recall the details of what all I traced out and how. Probably very few can. But it took several hours over a week or so to sort it out and read the diagram enough times and the step-by-step step description of the functions of all the switches to figure my issues out.

If you have a specific question or issue take pics and ask on that one item or function/conection. I'm sure someone will attempt to help you out. Your question may be a bit to general or vague.

Another thought. If your system is properly fused , you hopefully won't hurt anything even if it's hooked up not quite right the first time. The exception may be the magneto. Others will hopefully chime in if I'm off base on something.
 
The problem with just matching up colors is that if the wiring harness in the tractor was modified, the colors don't mean anything anymore.

There are also several different variations of ignition system on the Command engines depending on whether it has spark advance or not, and the wire colors do not appear to be the same. It's not very clear in the service manual. We don't know what you are working with, either.

The 1862 engine connector is supposed to have the following colors of wire, which are not at all matching up with what you stated in your other post ("Tractor wiring has 2 yellow & black wires together. 2 red & black wires together. 1 single black."):

Alternator: Red/white
Oil Light: Black
Magneto Kill Wire: Yellow

The engine connector should have 4 of the 5 terminal locations in use. Similar situation here, the colors you state are not matching up with what I'd expect ("The engine connector has. A red & blue together. A single green. then a single blue that goes to the starter.")

Magneto kill wire (white on both my Commands, I think)
Oil Light (green on every Kohler engine I've had equipped as such)
Alternator (purple wire on both of my Commands. This wire will be the color of the center of the three connected to the rectifier. If equipped with a fuel solenoid, that wire could be red and also present in the same terminal)
Starter solenoid (single blue wire on both of my Commands)

A picture of both connectors so we could see what you are dealing with would help us help you.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top