After priming via the intake, it kicked liked it was gonna start, than immediately died. Assuming it might be a fouled carb, I removed the filter cover, and the darn filter was drenched with fuel/oil.
Just to be clear as to the difference between a 2-stroke and a 4-stroke engine, you can't 'prime' a 2-stroke with liquid fuel.
Spray starter will work, but otherwise most of it just puddles in the bottom of crankcase and you don't want that.
On an NT carb, all the primer button does is hold the float bowl down to fill it after is sits awhile to fill it.
Keep holding it down and fuel is going to flow either out the filter if your carb is tileted back, or into the engine if it's tiled forward.
Is your carb level?
The entire fuel system is gravity based.
You simply need your carb as level to ground as possible to function.
If carb is level then it's just a float bowel adjustment but you can only adjust so far.
One last thing.
In unhooking the fuel line, do I drain the tank completely, and start off with a fresh fuel/oil mixture?
Or is that necessary.
Surely you vets must have a system, cause seems kinda unwieldy uncapping the line, recapping and hooking it up again without making a god-awful mess.
I do all my fuel system work outside, no exceptions as I live here and gas on carpet is not friendly.
You shouldn't need to worry about fuel quality yet.
But for prepping carb removal I like to have it running and just shut off fuel flow until the engine dies.
You can't do that, so just turn off flow, pinch the gas line where it enters the carb, disconnect that and secure the gas line end end as high as you can above the gas tank.
Got a level side pic of engine and carb?
I have a hunch that's your problem.