[nemw001]

I poured a 1/2 cup af raw gas right down the carb held the fuel pedal to the floor and cranked - and just the backfiring - would not fire off until fuel was exhausted as you would expect it to do if it was fuel related - This particular engine has timing gears, and I'm not sure whether the 1/2" "play" is normal or not. I did move the timing adjust one notch at a time, in both directions, and tried to fire it off and still just the backfiring and I would think that doing that would gain 1/4" ish of the slop in gears and allow it to fire off if excessive play was the issue, Not sure though??? Thank you for the input - I am feeling really dumb about now and am sure this will turn out to be something really simple and overlooked by me.