electrical issue with cub cadet

I have an 2008 cub cadet LTX 1046 with a Briggs 23 HP. The unit has 157 hours on it. With a full charge a new battery won't spin the engine more than twice. The volts drop to 8.5 when I try and spin it. I adjusted the valves, which was needed, and the same thing happens. Now if I disconnect the pos terminal and put a meter from the pos post to the disconnected terminal it reads 1.15 volts, leading me to believe I have a ground fault in the positive side. So first , is my thinking correct? If so the fault would have to be in the solenoid or the keyswitch (or wire inbetween) yes???

 

The first thing that I would do is to pull the battery and have it load tested. New does not always equal good - especially with these small batteries.

If good and then charged from a remote source (charger) then start checking for a drain or an onboard charging failure.

 

If you had a major drain you would have measured closer to battery voltage.
There is a very slight drain there with your measurement of around a volt. That slight drain could be normal and disappear with the charging of an electronic module.

Anyway.... this would not be your starting problem.

 

Actually, when you try to start it, and your voltage drops to 8.5 volts, that is a load test and would indicate bad cells in the battery.