Toro 20055 not starting

Hi,
I have the above captioned mower that has a priming bulb. After repeated priming the plug does not even look wet....however if I put a few drops of gas in the cylinder it fires right up.
How best to trouble shoot this?
Thank you

Without the engine numbers I’m assuming you have a Briggs engine with the primer bulb mounted in the air filter base. Most times the base will warp where it mounts to the carb, allowing the primer to leak. Two ways I’ve fixed this problem. Instead of one gasket between the base and carb body, I use two gaskets with a thin coat of grease between the gaskets. If that doesn’t work I usually end up replacing the air filter base And gasket.

Either 125K02-0189-E1 or 126T02-0206-E1

There one other way to get the primer to work if primer base is warp. That is to make a wedge gasket using two gaskets using some wood glue and a backbone razor blade. You are basically wanting to put more pressure on the area of least contact. Put one gasket on the primer base and tighten the mount screws to 35 in/lbs. After you do this remove the primer base and look at the gasket impression. It will show where more pressure is needed as there will less contact impression.