On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:59:12 +0100, Stephen
wrote:

Hello,

I bought one of these on a whim when it was in a sale a couple of
years ago. I've never used it properly but on the advice of people
here, I would run it with a load every now and again to make sure it
was working. What with moving house etc. it has not been used in a
long time. I found it whilst tidying the garage the other day and
cannot start it.

Is there anything I can try to resurrect it? The oil/petrol mix has
been in there a while, should I pour that out and start again?

Along with all the other good replies, I normally do the following:

Spray a bit of EasyStart into the inlet (if possible, remove the plug,
spray in and replace plug if not) and see if it tries to fire up. If
it does you know you have compression and ignition.

Then I'd pull the fuel pipe from the carb (if accessible) and with the
fuel tap turned on, see if any fuel comes out. If it does then you
might have to remove the carb float bowl / carb and clean it out. If
it doesn't you may have a faulty tap, blocked filter or pipe. Whilst
you may not get full performance with old fuel, as mentioned elsewhere
I don't think it would stop a working machine (of the basic type) from
running. [1]

I have used the above recently to start two otherwise unstartable
machines. One was seized rings (2/ with no compression so wouldn't
start with the EasyStart test) and the other was a 4/ mower with
grunge in the tank / carb.

I have a 3KW 4/ (Honda powered) genny that would randomly start / run
and that turned out to be a faulty coil.

Cheers, T i m

[1] I had an Indian built Royal Enfield Bullet 350 that had been left
untouched for about 3 years. The petrol smelled more like paraffin but
it did start and run (with a completely dry battery) with only a
couple of kicks, once I had cleared the float jet.