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I always recommend checking out the ignition system as the first place to start. Make sure that you have the requisite FAT, BLUISH-WHITE SPARK from the wire that goes into the center of the distibutor cap when you hold it near a good ground and try to start it. Make sure that the timing and the firing order(1-3-4-2) are correct and the centrifugal advance is working properly. These checks take all of 5-10 minutes once you have rounded up the timing light. If you don"t have a good spark you"ll need to find out why and there is a lot of stuff in the archives to tell you what to look for. As far as the firing order, the neighbor hood kids coud have switched the wires and you can tell in a glance if that"s been done. If the timing is radically changed I"d look a little deeper and find out why that happened. Sometimes the cam thrust plate gets overly worn and the cam can move forward and push the distributor shaft upward and damge the distributor. Most TO-30 owners don"t know that the distributor has an oil reservoir to lube the bushing and that there is a felt wick that requires oiling in the distributor shaft to oil the advance mechanism and it"s probably one of the most neglected maintenance items on the tractor.Could be your advance is stuck. If everything checks out in the ignition system, look at the fuel supply and see if that"s adequate. Make sure the mixture is properly set. Overly lean mixtures are hard to light(ignition delay) which effectively throws off the timing. A dirty main jet or an air leak around the carb metering system ( worn air seals on the htrottle shaft, leaking gasket at connect flance between carb and intake manifold, cracked intake maifold, leaking manifold gasket, etc) can cause this problem. Reset the main jet and try to run again and note the result. If there is no change go an 1/8 turn more open and see what happens. If fuel and mixture check out, check out the compression and see what you learn from that. Do all these checks systematically and write down the results so you can analyze them later. My TO-30 started running like a three legged dog all at once and it was misfiring, had no power, etc (I was sure it was the fuel system until I checked the spark!)and I found that my distributor shaft and bushing were worn so bad that with the points closed, I could push on the shaft from the side and open the points to 0.030"! Now it was a fifty year old distributor so all that wear didn"t happen overnight but it got bad enough that morning so that the tractor wouldn"t run well at all Yet it ran fine the previous time I used it. I cna"t give the reason for the problem you are having but if you systematically check the major subsystemsout, I"m sure you"ll find your problem and that will be the most ecconomical way to find it. What ever you do, don"t start changing out parts. Syatematically look for the problem then fix/replace the part(s) that are the cause.
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