Update time....
I dragged it over to the other garage today and replaced the missing 4" piece of fuel line that used to connect the carb and tank....
put a little gas in the tank and instantly it started pouring out the mouth of the carb.
So I pulled the carb and started to dismantle it... strike 1 against this motor.... everything about it is metric..... carb is a Mikuni.
I got the bowl off, didn't look "too" terrible in there.... I've revived worse looking ones, for sure.
was trying to be careful, sometimes one can get lucky and pull a carb apart, clean it and reassemble it without having to replace anything.....
Well, the float pin was stuck.... I tried to tap it one way or the other with a light, tack hammer..... and that thing is as fragile as glass.... split one of the float hinge pin slots in the carb casting, in half with just a few taps....
before this happened, I did fill the bowl and shut the petcock as soon as the flood started.... the engine started on 2nd pull, (twice) even trying to hold other hand against gas tank (since it isn't bolted down) Lots of chinese carbs on Ebay, over 1/2 of them the same price within pennies, the other ones are incrementally higher..... I did find 3, NOS carbs out there.....
the genuine ones were all the same packaging and part number, so I bought the cheapest of the 3..... why pay more, for the identical same thing???
and he took an offer from me......I offered him basically what shipping and tax ended up costing, less than listing price.... and he took it. the new original replacement was probably best bang for buck because of time I don't have to spend on this one, I never did see what a kit for that original carb would run, and OE is a known quality.....
there were no used carbs to be had for that engine on Ebay today..... but what used parts there were to be had for that engine (besides a carb) seemed pretty reasonable, compared to even some of the equivalent used parts for Briggs Tec and Kohler, out there in Ebay-land, should someone need any.
