This thread has been dormant for a while, but I figured out the issue with the hard starts. It had a bad coil. It's weird because I ohmed it out and it looked ok, but I noticed it looked like the center was moving out of the case, because there was a space in the groove between the top and the side. I'm not sure what happened to it, maybe it overheated and swelled and pushed out? I had a spare here so I put it on to try it and the engine fired right up and purred. So, now it's a good runner again.
