Until yesterday, my plastic carburetored 8237 would not really start either. If I used ether, she run for 2 to 4 seconds, for the PO, she start and run at full bore, putting some hard hours on the poor old engine.
I "cleaned" the carburetor , but this helped not.
So I went to work on the governor - evidently, this MUST be right in order for starting to occur. Having little idea of what I was doing, I disassembled the governor assembly and reassembled..The settings were pure guesswork !
To my surprise, the LB started right up with one pull and 5 squeezes.
Its running is at 80-90%.
Now I have a holey deck, wobbly wheels , and worn out handle brackets to contend with. This must be one high mileage mower !
And, YES, a clogged exhaust will do in a two-stroke(and any engine for that matter), but poor high end running will also occur as well as hard starting and overheating !