I bought this back in 2014 to work in a house before the power was on. I let gas dry up in it many years ago, and knew it needed repair, then last winter my BIL came and insisted on borrowing it. I knew it wouldn't start but thought the exercise yanking the rope might keep him warm so I let him use it.
When he brought it back, of course it hadn't started and it leaked a bunch of gas on the garage floor before I finally noticed it. I had to fix it anyway, so no big loss but it was curious how trying to start it caused a fuel leak in a basically new generator.
The first video I watched only talked about fuel drying up and blocking the primary jet and used acid to clean it. I used a piece of a wire bread tie. Once that was clear the motor hit on the first pull, but wouldn't run without the choke.
Next I found out about the pilot jet, which causes exactly that. You can access it from outside the carb so you don't have to pull it to work on that. That was too clogged up so the wire didn't work. I also tried welding wire to no avail, and eventually used the smallest drill bit I have to clear it. Then it would start and run but it would rev, kick the governor, rev, etc.
I think my bit cleaning the pilot changed the size and is causing that so I put a new pilot jet in yesterday. I don't know if that fixed it because because I'm not finished and I don't want to put gas in it just yet. The revving could also be that the throttle screw had to come out to access the pilot jet and it isn't exactly back where it came from (I counted turns from all the way in).
While I was fixing the primary jet, I noticed the shutoff valve didn't work. I also found that the float valve was stuck open. Those two things caused the gas leak - the float didn't stop flow into the carb, and the shutoff valve didn't stop flow out of the tank. The fuel just drained right through.
FWIW, if you're just going to replace junk with junk and not try to upgrade the thing, I found a carb/shutoff package deal for less than a carburetor alone. I had done several Amazon searches before finding it though - the best deal never shows up the first time.