I am not an expert diagnostician, but personally, I have often found that it appears that the main jet or related ports has been plugged. Admittedly, I usually don't see a plug, but after removing the jet or running a small wire thru and blowing out obvious areas, and reinstalling the carb, everything often runs fine. Obviously, full choke implies 'starved for fuel', so the diagnosis makes sense.

Getting a carb off and cleaning the main jet area is usually easy and therefore, the repair COULD likely be minimal BUT I suppose something deeper could be clogged up. Doing a complete carb rebuild is more time consuming and sometimes doesn't work, but then you could just buy a new or rebuilt carb for $60 or something.

So, this probably depends on the asking price for the chipper.

While I have not seen the Chipper Sredder, the one I have an eye on is an 5.5 hp MTD Yard Machine. From the pictures it looks clean and well cared for. It is of unknown age as it was purchased used by the current owner. It has the more aggressive tred patten on the tires not the liner treaded plastic wheels of the current models.

He is asking $150 for it. but with the conditions in my first post.

While you are at it add an inline fuel filter in your gas line, it helps. They only cost a buck or two,

I have moved this project back for further study. I am in the process of keeping a record of the times I have need of the chipper and the amount of material I have to chip.