FYI, it's not uncommon for me to work 70 hour weeks, which makes it hard to be readily available to respond to this forum. I apologize for the delay and appreciate your continued advice.
I was able to successfully pull and reattach the flange from/onto the spindle in order to add tension that would hold the butterfly closed when the engine was cold. It was working in the sense that the butterfly was closed on cold starts and being opened at operating temperatures. Maybe not fully opened, but at operating temps, the butterfly was definitely opened more than it was closed. Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem. In fact, is getting worse. The carburetor is now flooding even when it is cold. It was only flooding when trying to do a restart at operating temperatures, but now it is flooding whether the engine is cold or hot. Assuming I goofed up, I returned the flange back to what I believe was the original position on the spindle. The carb is simply flooding all the time now, whether it is a cold or hot restart. Well I'm glad I didn't waste money on a new auto-choke.
Now I'm thinking that maybe the float is hanging up. However, it is a brand new carb. I just got it like 3 months ago. That's 12 weeks of use at approx. 1 hour per week or only 12 hours of runtime on that carb. I shouldn't be having trouble with it. Several times I have rapped on the outside of the bowl with a screwdriver handle. I want to see if I could free up the float, if it is in fact hung, but with no joyful results. I hate to think I have to crack the seal on a brand new carburetor.
