79 Spitfire barn/field find - no spark?

[Steve's/440Trailfire]

Just bought a 79 Spitty, along with 3 trailfires and a JD trailer from an old local farmer yesterday. Sleds have been sitting outside on a trailer, covered for a period of time due to the shreds of blue tarp material all over everything, for about 15 years.

Got all but one home and started to give them a closer inspection and some long overdue clean-up!
While cleaning up the Spitty we found a big mud dobber nest in behind the recoil housing and you can here some stuff kinda grinding around in the stator housing. The motor pulls over very easily so we cleaned it out and blew out around the flywheel as good as we could and then tested for spark...nothing. Is it possible that there is another nest behind the flywheel causing the no spark?

Also, I have a 34mm round slide mikuni from a 440 trailfire sitting on the bench. Is this a good carb to put onto the Spitfire or is it too big? I'm much more familiar with this kind of carb and would prefer to use it but I've heard that the butterfly carbs are a little better at getting on the pipe out of the hole when tuned right? Anyone have any experience with this?

We also tested compression and have just over 120psi on each jug. After we figure out the no spark condition, and go through the carb, lines, and pump, should we try and start it to see if it will run or should we not even try it without taking the motor out and doing the seals, gaskets? Do I need to do the rings too if I do this or can I split the case and leave the pistons in?

Thanks, Steve

[JDXspec]

first thing to try is dissconnecting the wiring. this would eliminate the kill switches. beyond that you are looking at pulling the flywheel and cking for more nests under the flywheel. the kohler powered spittys do have CDIs and or coils go bad fairly common

The carb is a 32mm butterfly is a bit of a different animal as far as Mikunis go but still pretty simple. try cleaning it first before experimenting

Seals can be done in the sled without splitting the case.