Hello all, i have a Honda GX160 engine giving me a bit of trouble. I recently changed the plastic governor gear and in doing so pulled the cam shaft out with the crank case during removal. The push rods and the cam followers fell down slightly but didn't drop out so i just pushed them back up.
During reassembly i lined up the dimples in the cam and crank shaft ensuring that the dimples made contact on the power stoke of the cycle while turning the engine over by hand.
I then positioned the piston to TDC and checked the valve clearances, setting the inlet to 0.006 and the exhaust to 0.008. After this i checked that the spark plug was igniting near the end of the compression stroke, which was fine. After replacing the gaskets i put everything back together and tried to start . Unfortunately i can not get it to start (it started fine before all of this meddling.) It backfires out of the exhaust and sometimes a puff of smoke from the carb but not as severe as the exhaust.
I also cleaned out the carburetor with carb cleaner soaking the jets over night.
Does anyone have an idea as to why this engine will not start? Any help will be much appreciated, thanks.