Ok, I've had another go this afternoon with not great results.
I got another crimp for the ignition lead and repaired that, it's tested OK.
I then had another go at starting from scratch to tune the engine.
I was able to get it started but whether at high revs or lower revs the engine is now pulsing. As it's doing that if I look into the throat of the carby from above I can see tiny splashes of fuel landing in the bottom of the carby housing.
I'm not able to get it to run at lower revs, it just stalls.
However, as suggested above I tried to rev the engine using the governor arm and it revved to pretty high revs, certainly much higher than I've had it revving using the remote throttle controls.
Reading around here am I right in suspecting there may be tubes blocked in the carby?
On the plus side this afternoon I was able to get an old McCulloch brushcutter running that's been sitting in the shed for about 10 years so I guess you win some and you lose some.
