Start by drying the cylinder again, pinch off the fuel line and give it a small prime. That will get it to pop with some cranking. If that fails, the ignition is your problem. Did you clean the points and carefully set them? Besides the points being dirty, a failed condenser is the next common ignition failure I encounter. Was everything put together properly? No wires grounding or rubbing the flywheel? Fortunately, points and condenser should be easy to find for that saw. I rarely replace points anyway. Just clean them with a file and ultra fine sandpaper.
I could just pull the fuel line right out of the tank I guess. The fuel line on this carb is almost non existent between the sediment bowl and carb. There's nowhere to pinch it. It's only 1" long or so and it's almost all fittings inside the line, no open space.
I'm leaning towards it being an ignition problem now. It may be as simple as the spark plugs I'm using are fouled out now from being drenched in fuel while I was working out the carb issues.
I did another spark test today and found the newer plug I bought recently wasn't even sparking when I pulled it over! Another time I got it to spark just a little bit a couple times. The old plug that came in the saw doesn't spark that well either.
I put a new NGK plug in the boot that's for my dirtbikes (never ran it yet) and it sparked just fine. It wasn't a huge spark, but it was consistently sparking. I think I need to get a new plug now to use going forward as those other ones are probably done after all the fuel soaking and flooding.
I didn't touch the points when I had it apart as spark was not an issue. I figured I'd just leave well enough alone. Maybe that was a bad idea. I'm going to try a new plug first since that's simple, cheap, and easy. If that doesn't work, then I'll take the starter/flywheel off again and check/clean the points. I just had the flywheel off so I doubt it will be difficult to remove now. It came off just fine with the puller I had anyway.
I don't believe any ground wires are rubbing anywhere. I put everything back how it was originally. The plug wire is pinched a bit from the previous owner smashing the heat shield over it. I looked at it when I first got the saw and it didn't go through the insulation on the wire. I wrapped it with electrical tape in that spot just to be sure.
Maybe while I have the fuel line out of the gas tank, I can remove the filter and hook my pressure tester up to it and check the carb again that way now that it has fuel in it?
I did notice some fuel was coming out of the exhaust while I was doing the spark test. But I was also pulling it a zillion times too. I would expect it to draw in fuel when pulling it over that many times. If it were dry then it would likely have a fuel problem.
I'll try the new plug first, then go from there. Would be nice if that's all it was haha!
Here's a video I did earlier this morning with three different plugs. First the new J8C plug I bought a couple months ago. Then a brand new NGK plug for my dirtbike. Then the original old J8J plug that came in it when I bought it.
I did a spark test when I first got the saw with the original J8J plug and you can see it was sparking just fine. I think the two plugs I'm using now are fouled out and shot.
