I have been quietly working on the mower since I last wrote, I have changed the on/off switch back to the original one, no difference. still getting a pretty good spark. so i decided to have a look at the carb, but first i watched a heap of youtube videos explaining how to clean small engine carbs which was really helpful. so i took it off and pulled it to bits slowly remembering where i got the part from, firstly you can call me stupid but i cleaned it with petrol from the tank cause i had none in my petrol can. put it back together then thought i would clean out the tank also, well that was full of crud like blobs of black stuff(i suppose congealed petrol/oil mix)so i went to super cheap auto and got some carb cleaner (geez that stuff stinks)pulled the carb apart again and recleaned it making sure not to get any on the float as the manual says solvents will remove the varnish on the float and it wont work. put it back together. cleaned the tap on the tank and inside the tank got some new gas mixed in 2 stroke oil and it still wont start. I must say that the new petrol smells nice and fresh where the old petrol smelt bad probably stale. But now a whole lot of black oil is coming out from underneath the mower, i suspect the exhaust. why would it be doing that ? the youtube videos i watched showed what a healthy spark looks like and mine is the same. I'm now stuck again and need some of your good advice. any suggestions ? attached are 2 pictures of the cleaned carb it was pretty simple to do. like you said it's all about learning and i'm certainely doing that. Thanks Pete
P.S forgot to mention i squirted some new petrol in the plug hole and the air filter throat no difference
