You could try dropping the bowl and doing a quick clean. Actually, popping off the tank and carb is pretty straight forward on these. You may first try checking for vacuum leaks w/a can of carb spray. It isn't the 1st one to not be completely smooth w/o the clutch engaged- but the lack of power is tell tale. If that's what you meant by runs fine but not a great deal of power means...

It sounds like one of the pinion gears is backwards. Do you hear clicks from both sides when you pull backwards with the transmission not engaged? The gears go on the axle with the open side facing the same direction. If one is reversed the wheel on the "wrong" side will lock in place and not spin when pulled backwards and you will hear clicks from that side when pushing it forward. Bk bk - the axle springs ca be ordered from www.greenpartsstore.com or through a John Deere dealer.

The engine is a Briggs & Stratton 22 hp model 40H777 Type 0241E1. It seems like the battery isn't taking a full charge and loses rather than maintains (or increases) it when the tractor's running. I'll go over the numbers: Before hooking up to the car battery it read less than 6 V (pretty bad right there). After connecting to the car battery (12.75 V) for 5-10 min and running, it was at about 11.6 V. It was a bit too noisy (+-.3 V) to see an affect of the rpms. After running the tractor for about 15 min, it was down to about 10.9 V. I rode it around for another 2 min and it was down to 10.6 V. I should have tried this before, but I engaged the PTO while hooked up to the car and it worked! So does the PTO need a full battery charge to switch on or what? Since the PTO failure first happened at my last Fall mowing after mowing for an hour, I never thought it was the battery. Also, turning the ignition key used to at least give me a click when I had a low battery and I get nothing now so I thought it was a different problem. Anyway, unless you suggest otherwise, I will get the new battery and see if that's all it needs. I really hope it's not some other aspect of the charging system. At least the PTO switch seems alright. Thanks for the help!

None of grandma's fresh baked cookies until this gets fixed! Does it seem as though the brake pedal comes all the way back up? Like maybe the pedal hasn't fully returned after disengaging the park brake? If it does at least roll, best guess is maybe the traction belt hopped off a pulley. If it does not actually roll- maybe the brake caliper or caliper arm is stuck. If you lift one rear corner and turn the tire, it shouldn't freewheel. If it does, you may have a missing /damaged wheel key as shown above. Best of luck.