This is the tractor the day I got it home: http://www.linearrow.com/tractor/tractor
It’s a 1952 Sidemount – the guy who sold it to me said it wasn’t firing and he hadn’t looked deeper…it had sat for a year or two.

Before trying to start or troubleshoot the tractor:

I drained the tank – flushed it with fresh gas and then I cleaned the sediment bowl, put a new screen/gasket in it and flushed the whole fuel line with fresh gas.
Then I removed and disassembled carb – cleaned it and reset all of the mixture adjustment screws to the recommended initial settings.

When I took a look at the distributor I noticed the points were in bad shape. I took the points-plate off, blew out the distributor housing and lubed the distributor weights while I was there. That is when I noticed that the little copper strip connecting the electrical through-bolt to the points was cracked in two. I made a replacement then installed New Points/condenser and rotor.
I checked the plugs…all of them looked good and the two I checked for spark produced a bright blue-white spark.

After all this it was still starving for fuel and dying after running just a few seconds. It turned out to be the inline filter someone had put in. While it appeared to flow just fine it wasn't letting enough fuel throught.

It isn't obvious but the 8N fuel system actually has three filters between the tank and the carboretor. A screen inside the fuel tank, one in the sediment bowl and a third in the inlet fitting at the carboretor itself....Adding a fourth is redundant and can(and did) cause problems with the gravity-fed fuel system used.

I knew the filter was a no-no, but was fooled for a while by the apparently ample flow coming through it....

After getting it running I did some tests, all the gears work fine - the hydraulic system works as designed and nothing leaks.

The engine doesn't smoke or knock and appears to have good power. I think I got lucky again with number three.