Hi, everyone, I'm new here so I hope this is the right place to post this.

I just picked up Sabre tractor by JD it has a 20hp Vanguard V-twin vertical shaft motor.

I picked this up for $60 with a plow so I couldn't pass it up, even if I couldn't get it running I figured it has some good parts on it, plus a plow. So, anyway, I got it home and tried to start it right away. i turned the key and the dash lit up, (that was great) then I turned the key a little more to start and I got nothing.

Went to my shed and grabbed a screwdriver to try and just the solenoid terminal's. She turned over right away and the battery was strong, it didn't start the first time so, I pulled the choke all the way out and raised the gas lever a little. I tried cranking it again and she started right up and sounded like it ran really good. this little tractor was dirty, dirty dirty. next thing I did was pressure wash it, the tractor was garage kept but I don't think they ever washed it in the 17 or so years they owned it. So, I get to the problem here and hope someone has some suggestions for me to try. I cut a little grass with it and it seemed a lacking in power, my wife said she could smell oil in the house, I couldn't smell anything. I parked it, pulled the spark plugs out. the left plug electrode was very white and the plug was also very dry. The right plug had a good color kind of chocolate brown and was a little wet. Now, I thought lets do a compression test. I did the left cylinder first and I set the throttle at full, compression read at about 153 PSI. Now, I switch over to the right cylinder and I gat a reading of 180PSI. Next I tested the spark. I have a spark tester that you plug one end in to the plug boot and the other end has a screw so that you can set a gap. I opened the gap two turns for the left plug and got a real strong spark, then I switch over the the right plug and I also got a strong spark. But on the right side, the spark was so strong that it jumped all over the the cone area of the tester. My next thought was to check the valve lash, the lash was just a little wider on the left, I set the lash on both sides to .0004, and then I did another compression check and I got the same readings. i took a brake after that and I went and picked up some new Spark plugs, oil, and a filter. So tomorrow I'm think ill try the new plugs first thing and see if that is the problem. if that is not the problem I'm thinking I will pull the cover off and try cleaning the grounding points on the coils. After that, I have no other Ideas. This turned out to be a lot longer then I thought, sorry if I got long winded here. Anyone have some tips or suggestions for me.? It will be greatly appreciated.

1. for the will not crank problem, check the easy stuff first. (1) fuse (2) pedal safety switch (3) blade disengage switch)

2. for the low power (1) perhaps the spark plug was shorted by the wet fuel/oil and you were running on one cylinder. See what happens with the new sparkplug. (2) when testing spark, Briggs spark testers have a .166 gap. This is used to simulate compression in the cylinder. If you were testing with the tester on the sparkplug, the voltage could have been travelling through the fuel path instead of jumping the gap.

Since you mentioned the engine smelled like oil, keep an eye on the oil level and monitor for any unusual oil consumption. If there's excessive oil burning, it could be a sign of worn piston rings or valve seals.