Okay gents, here is where we are as of this morning. I can now confirm it is running, the throttle works, and its blowing a whole lot of air. The issue now though is that it will only do this when both the air filter compartment and the black bit that covers the carb are fully removed. I took the advice to add a little gas directly into the carb/spark to get it running. Nothing was happening so I ended up taking it off down to the carb to make sure the choke switch was working, it was. Gas added directly into carb, left it all apart, got it going. Was excited.
We have two videos to watch, both with sound if you click the audio icon in the link on the top right of the movie:
Link to video:
Click here to get to the first video
Video 1:
This shows it running and pulling the throttle. Air blasting the leaves all the way down the driveway with ease. During this time I also picked it up and walked around a bit pulling the throttle. Worked well enough. Didn't test for too long but it ran for several minutes and never turned itself off.
Link to video:
Click here to get to the second video
Video 2:
This shows adding back on the black cover and you can hear it start to struggle. If you pull the throttle while this is on it completely dies.
Blower will not start at all if both the black cover and orange air filter compartment are added. Remove all of it, like I have above, the blower will most likely start if pulling the starter cable and also trying to throttle up at the same time.
Edit: Had to fix the video links.