Evening everyone, 

I am trying to revive our John Deere L110 (bought in 2004) and am correctly running into electrical issues I believe. It has a 17.5 horsepower Kohler Command single cylinder engine and so far, I have checked the battery (charged to 12 volts), replaced the solenoid, and I have even tried to jumpstart the dumb thing by jumping the starter directly. The starter does in fact try and kick over the engine, but it seems as though there are too many sparks for me to let the cables stay on for more than a few seconds. Should I just let it stay on until the engine finally kicks over, despite the sparks? 

Even after replacing the solenoid, the clue that points me to it being an electrical issue is this. When I sit on the mower and go to turn the key, the odometer illuminates with the driven hours (about 270), and when I go to crank it, I hear a small click, and then the accessories shut off. Following that first click, and despite me turning the key to the run position many times, the electrical accessories do not light up afterward and take at least a full minute of rest before they come back on. I am thinking that there is a short somewhere in the wiring harness that is to blame. After the checking the volts on the battery again, it went from 12 Volts down to about 11.50 Volts. 

I recently purchased a multimeter to help me proceed, but I am lost with what to do next. Thanks for any help and guidance.