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So, details..

A neighbor came by and said I could have his old edger since he is now too old to do his own lawn and says his son didn't want to put the effort into getting it running again. Told me it was rough to start, if it would start at all, and no one wanted to be bothered.

This is what I am working with here:
Picture 2:
It's a 1980s Craftsman walk behind edger. What I have done so far:

Drained the gas and fuel. Turned it basically upside down for the gas and on its edge for the oil.

Refilled the oil with synthetic. 5w-30 listed on the unit so that is what I used

Refilled the gas with ethanol free unleaded (hooray for Wawa having it at every station down here!)

Added 2oz of Seafom to the tank

New spark plug

It now starts and runs but only with the throttle set to high. I was able to use it to trim the edges near the sidewalk, so far a huge sucsess over it sitting in his garage unable to start or work for years.

The guy also had a new air filter and this is where I am running into problems. With the old air filter, which is ancient looking, rusty, and entirely not clean:
Old filter: Second pic: New filter:
With the new one on it putters for a bit then shuts off.
Three videos (with sound you just need to enable it)
1) Old filter, then it being removed: 2) New filter showing how fast it turns off: I could keep it going fora little but with the choke but once I moved it closed it shuts down
3) Back to old filter running fine:
So, where do I go from here? My research points towards needing to rebuild/clean the Carburetor but that is where my knowledge stops, not sure how to proceed with that, but thats why I am here.

Here are a bunch more pictures to see more closeups of the unit <- Click that and you can see the fuel line and air filter locations, I am guessing the carb would be behind that for the mixing point?

First thing I would do is get another new filter, as that one may look new but if it sat around out of the box it could very well be clogged due to moisture corruption.

Do you have any idea how to find this model number online? I am searching for "536.871100" and it's almost like this thing doesn't exist. I have found other vingage models and things similar but this one appears to be a phantom lost to time. Was hoping to find the original manual or scans or part lists to help things get going.

The engine starts to die as soon as you remove that old filter. That filter is restricting the air flow enough that, mixed with the inadequate amount of fuel being fed by the carburetor, it happens to be enough to be a combustible mixture. When the air filter is remove, the mixture becomes too lean to run.

Carburetor needs a thorough cleaning.

carburetor on that edger is it bowl or diaphragm?. If you have diaphragm that is same rebuilt kit like old Toro S-200 snowblower .

The 536. prefix was for a company called "Noma", which got absorbed by Murray.

Go to Sears Parts Direct and type in your model number, they will get you a parts diagram. On the engine shroud, top or side, you will find a model number for the engine. You will the find the parts numbers you need.

The engine is a Tecumseh. Take a closer pic of the numbers stamped here in the top cover, or type up the numbers.

Take a better pic of the carb, and we can tell you where the mixture screws are. Backing them out a tad will likely get you running.

I have one of these(just a few years newer).
If you have too much trouble getting the original diaphragm carb to work you could replace the whole carb- carb
or else(which i did) the tecumseh bowl carb fits so u could replace it with that - bowl carb

So as a report back in..

I ended up replacing the entire thing based on my research. The original was too far gone, everything was falling apart and a replacement diaphragm piece cost more than the $15 I spent on an entire carb replacement. Was this one if anyone ever views this thread: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IK2MNZK/

We are all pretty sure it's this engine now, a Tecumseh H30: https://www.jackssmallengines.com/j...1022-craftsman-35327n-h30/engine-parts-list-3

Cleaned up the engine, swapped the pieces, fuel line, and it works. There is a screw at the bottom which is the mixture screw from what I read. I screwed it all the way in then basked it out until it started to run. So that's really great. So far so good. Used it this weekend and it tore through the grass like it was a knife on hot butter.

While we're at it with this model, does anyone know if the pull cord can be replaced with something better? Right now the first six inches on the one attached are completely slack, once you get past that the rest of it is very tight and you need to throw all of your weight behind getting it going and brace the unit so it doesn't fly away with the cord. I asked the neighbor about that and he said he did try to replace it some time ago but doesn't think he did a very good job, hence it not working smoothly now. Since the original was replaced there is no part number on the new pull cord assembly.

Pull cord can be fixed very easy.Just unscrew 4 nuts and you have it.First i would clean & lube spring.Now to eliminate that slack on your rope just rape about 2 times and see if that work for you.
But if you want to spend $20 i did see some on E-bay.