Thanks for your ideas fellas. It has been inreasingly harder to start over 12 months (especially when hot) but became impossible to start 3 months ago. Would not fire at all. I started work on it yesterday (wife threatened to buy new mower) and found I had a spark, just checked again today but now no spark! I have cleaned the tank, put in new fuel, checked carby O rings. I will pull off the muffler later today. Yes Bruce, the blade plate is still on.
