I think I have solved the mystery. It seems that I have a tank full of bad gas. Probably water in it. I swapped tanks and within 5 minutes the engine has been running great. Hope it is problem solved.
I have just replaced the idle wire on the engine and now it has become hard to start and will not idle. Also, once I get it going it goes right along and once I get up to about half throttle it will run and then just die right out. I have to pull start it many times with half choke and give it...