That engine is unusual, in my experience anyway, because of the centrifugal ignition advance system. I think it would be a sufficiently rare bird in Australia to be worth preserving as an interesting model.
Thanks again, you are a fountain of info. I'm glad I found this site as I'd have got nowhere fast without it.
Following a bit of an appraisal of the situation, my draft plan is to follow your advice and get the thing back to standard. The exception to this is the electric start, my poor old bones won't stand up to pull starting these things any more. It has a steel ring gear on the flywheel and bolt holes for the starter unit. The flywheel gear is the wrong pitch for the 16 tooth starter gear, so I'm going to attempt to replace it with the alloy one listed in the storefront (when the accountant permits it) In the meantime I'll get to cleaning up the cutting deck, checking bearings etc and sussing out this Cox friction drive thing. I'll put up some pics as I go along, as to do this properly looks like it'll take a lot longer than I thought.
