Well, it was the timing. Thanks to all of you who hammered me about checking that I had the plug wires in the right place. I set up the distributor cap/plug wires by the drawing and photo in the 77 operators manual. The drawing is off by one--had everybody skip one to the right, a sniff of starter fluid--viola! Tractor go put-put (as my wife says)!Compression numbers seem good (I checked while I was discovering TDC for number 1 cylinder) -- 120 to 140 for all except number 1. That one read 80 to 100, but I was doing this by myself and had my arms stretched as far as they would go to push the starter button and hold the gauge in the number 1 plug hole. Might be better, I don't know. Thanks to everybody for all the great input and advice. Even without a muffler this baby purrs. I'm looking forward to nailing down all the details now that she's gonna run. I drove it all around the ranch on Sunday, tinkering with the carb settings. I haven't put a tach and timing light to it yet, but I hope that is what will help me get the top end of power out of it. Right now, if I put the throttle at more than the middle of the quad, the engine starts to stall. I'm thinking that the spark must be a little retarded. Is my thinking about this right? Idle speed has been set to just getting it as low as it would go, idle mix is leaned out to just under sputtering, and the power jet is out about a turn and a half.
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