I still have one of these that I display from time to time, but it has to be 30 years or more that I have messed with it. As I cant remember what I had for dinner last night, I’ll see if I can take a look at mine today to get a better understanding of what you’re asking. As a newbie knowing the basics of how these run can be helpful in understand the purpose of something without overthinking it. First the fuel system. While a carburetor will have float bowls, jets, power valves, metering rods, accelerator pumps, choke and throttle plates, and such the early motors have none of this. Its what’s often called a fuel mixer. Your Waterwitch has the most basic fuel mixer. Not even a float bowl to help regulate the fuel mixture as the fuel runs down in the tank. The “poppet valve” inside the mixer is pulled open by suction as the piston is going down. Fuel is added to the air as it passes over a hole in the valve seat under the valve. How much fuel is mixed with the air is controlled by the mixture screw. That’s it. Dirt is about the only issue you can have, however the needle can often be severely rust pitted on these. There is no throttle plate to regulate the amount of air. Compared to a carburetor, a fuel mixer is wide open all the time. The speed of the motor is controlled totally by when the sparkplug fires in relation to the location of the piston in the cylinder. The closer the piston is to the top of the cylinder when the fuel ignites, regulates the speed of the motor. The “Timing” of the spark, to ignite the fuel, is adjusted by moving the magneto plate. As the motor turns clockwise, moving the magneto plate counterclockwise makes the spark occur sooner, making the motor spin faster. Most of the early motors just have a lever mounted to the magneto plate, you move by hand, to adjust the timing. You have some gears, a shaft and a lever to do this instead. If it is out of adjustment, the only thing that is affected is which way the lever ends up pointing, not aligning with slow, start, or fast. Knowing this, I believe you can make sense of what you have (self-taught) but I do intend to take a took at my motor – if I remember. I’m sure you know much of this already but I need to include it all for any of it to make some sense.
A "Boathouse Repair" is one thats done without having tools or the skills to do it properly.
