Ok. I've had some old rig sitters but never a problem where I had to crank excessively to get gas to start. Couple cranks, couple of accel pumps and start. Just feels like another issue to me, leaky carb, over vented, bad choke, bad accelerator pump???? Shouldn't be a hard start in 1-2 weeks, I would not like it either.
In any case if you go with the electric (before the mechanical), make sure the mechanical pump will allow flow through it's valve to carb regardless of arm diaphragm position.
Good luck, interesting idea.
Dave
