On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 10:02:16 -0600, Steve Kraus
wrote:

Interesting development just now.

All along I felt that whatever experiment or test I was trying in an effort
to get this thing going would be that much more likely to succeed with more
vigorous cranking, more than I can manage by hand.

This engine does have a 12V electric starter which runs off a battery one
keeps charged with an external charger. I have not used it in years
because the plastic ring gear on the periphery of the flywheel is chewed up
so I don't even keep a battery installed. So among my experments I tried
hooking it up to my car's battery and hoped that there would be sufficient
momentum to get past the bad parts of the gear but that was not this case.

This morning as I still had the shroud off to look at the flywheel key I
thought I might take advantage of the exposed crankshaft top. I tried
cranking it with an air wrench but it was not fast enough.

So, after rounding up the appropriate adaptors, tried again with an
electric drill. (After the usual shooting some gas into the carb with a
syringe.) I thought it was a lost cause but what the hell, after some
lengthy cranking the engine started to run. Not great...a lot of missing
but it did run. I killed it after a minute as I didn't want it to overheat
without the shroud guiding the air over the cylinder.

I quickly bolted the shroud on and it cranked up with the recoil starter
okay and I put it to the test picking up leaves. I don't know anything
else as I was pretty convinced there was a broken ring or some other
internal calamity. Of course the real test will be starting it cold.

But there you have it. A Festivus miracle!
Put some "top lube" in the gas - something like Marvel Mystery Oil.
Some in the oil too - I'm betting you had a stuck exhaust valve and
you want to free that up.