Sudden onset hard to start

[belyle]

If you recall, I bought a 1st gen Brat about a year and a half ago. When I bought it, everything was rosy: it ran pretty well, it started easily, life was good.

 

One day I went out to start The Dragon, and it was difficult to start. It would crank just fine, and then catch and fire for a couple of seconds, then die. I' pump the gas a couple of times and crank it again. I'd have to repeat that 3-4 times, and finally it would start and run rough until warmed up.

 

It seemed to me to be a choke problem. I know that the brat has an automatic choke, but those work on black magic as far as I know. A couple of weeks ago, I took off the air cleaner housing to have a look. Part of my carburetor was hanging off the side. It was a dome on the passenger side of the carb, it had a (broken-looking) coil of metal inside, and seemed to be hooked to the vacuum lines. I put it back on.

 

Since I did that, it's been even harder-er to start. I can still get it started with some persistence, pumping the gas a couple of times with each cranking try.

 

So, a couple of questions: can I put a manual choke in. How? And if not, what do I need to do to get the auto choke working again?