The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop First Start after ~10 years

My Poor 51 3100 has been sitting outside in the back yard and not run for at least 10 years!
Time has come to resurrect her
Of course first off fresh Oil & filter - have to say the oil looked not horrible at all - Synthetic really does hold up well.
I put a little ATF down through the plug wells, just for some insurance, and first turned the engine over by the fan - absolutely free, no problems.
Then with Plugs still out, turned on the key & pressed the starter pedal - absolutely smooth, no worries there at all. Cranked over a number of 10 sec bursts, just to get the oil moving through the system.
Pressed on - ready for the next big step!
My biggest concern was the gas (for good reason given the time) but thought we'd see how it went. It had a bottle of K100 in the tank when it was last run (I have another qt arriving tomorrow which I'll add along with maybe some more fresh gas)
Don't know if anyone has used that - it is REALLY great stuff - will put any water into the solution to where it will be combusted along with the fuel. But recognize they say will stabilize for 2 years - this has been 10!!!

I did a test with that about 15 years ago in my old lawn tractor where these was significant water in the tank.
Anyway - put plugs back in and tried cranking.
Again cranked over really strongly, but no sign of a cough let alone fire.
Back to basics, pulled a plug - first off, it was wet, so at least 'something' was getting into the cylinders
But no spark (actually not what I expected) Tried just opening the points and could not get spark there.
And with them 'closed' I was getting 12V* across them, so there was no connectivity between them.
*I should add that this is a 12V system now, with an alternator - retained the original coil with a resistor in series (at some point I really need to just get a 12V coil)
Took some emery and cleaned up the contact breaker contacts - re-checked the gap, miraculously was still good at 0.018
Turned on ignition and now I could manually open the breaker and get spark across them -VERY much encouraged by that.
I dumped the contents of the Fuel Filter bowl - looked like gas, no sign of any water droplets (it was full incidentally, before I even started cranking it - probably just sitting there as when left all those years before - suggests everything was pretty tight!)
Now tried cranking again - no throttle and no choke** .........
As I was cranking, I wouldn't say I could necessarily feel the point where it started firing, but it seemed to be going slightly faster and realized the motor was catching - released the starter and there it was - idling absolutely sweetly, no throttle or choke!!
I was actually pretty stunned - but delighted.
I just let it run for a while like that, sounded perfect no missing or stumbling but it die out.
However re-started again just as nicely.

Here's where I am now:
So have it basically running - but it will not take throttle at all - try to feed it in super slowly but it just wants to die; if I release it, it idles sweetly again.
I haven't had a chance to investigate further, but expect it is now fuel related - whether that be the carb or the fuel itself.
I mentioned the choke earlier - The knob pulled right out and the cable is obviously detached - now I'm assuming with the cable detached it simply won't close the choke as opposed to it closing on its own?
Of course I do need to check to make sure it is open - and need to pull the air filter too, to be sure nothing has tried to build a nest in there.
The fuel, itself will be hard to drain & dispose of (but will try to get at least some off the bottom of the tank and look for water - but fact it runs, even though just idle at least suggests there is combustible fuel getting through - so will try more K100 and add some fresh gas just to improve it somewhat
If not choke or air filter I should probably pull the carb and clean that up.

So what else should I put on my list for tomorrow?

p.s. I did a disc brake conversion back then - when rolling it down to the garage, pedal was still hard and stopped it! Far cry from moving at speed yet, but I was please to feel that hard pedal, did not even need to be pumped up to pressure. Must have done something right there too!