I thought I had this finished but there are still issues. What I did so far
is I took of the carb, took it apart, soaked it in parts cleaner, and blew
out all the channels. I put it back together, installed it, and got it
running. I have experimented with the needle adjustments, and it seemed to
run OK by backing out each one 1 and a half turns. By the way, why are there
two needle valves and which does what? One is a little longer than the
other. The shorter one had markings on the housing where it fits in that say
L and H, so I take it that means Low and High. There are also two gas hoses
into this and I wondered why two? Today, I went out to put the plastic cover
back over the carb area and there was gas in there. The throat of the carb
wasn't flooded, so there must be gas leaking out around a connection, but
where? Also, there was a few drops of oil dripping from the low spot on the
muffler. It also wouldn't start without very much effort. I know the oil/gas
mixture is right. I also put in a new spark plug even though the old one
looked fine. I was wondering if the two rubber gaskets that have some
apparent function need replaced. They would be old too. But where to find
them when the machine is 20 years old and the company was bought out by
Ryobi since then?