I used my trash pump once, a year ago. It has a Honda GX 120 4hp engine.

It got put away with mud compacted in the rewind and flywheel. I took it apart and removed the mud and used steel wool on the flywheel and the ignition thingy that is attached to it. The flywheel is pitted but things look good. The stationary ingnition thingy looks unaffected. but I get very little spark, maybe one spark for every three pulls.

Any suggestions?

The thingy aka solid-state ignition armature may still be dirty. If I were you, I would take it off the motor and clean it along with the contact points on the flywheel. I use emery cloth and then I spray it with electrical contact cleaner. When you put it back on I believe the gap should be about .010". You should also check the spark plug wire and cap to make sure that there isn't any rust. I hope this helps.

I cleaned the solid-state ignition armature not that it looked bad. The spark plug wire is sealed to the armature and nothing looks caroded. I don't think the mud got that high.

Gaping the armature; I only have a blade type thingy and it was difficult to use on a curved survace. How crucal is the gap I could be off by a couple of hundredths.

Maybe I damaged the switch pulling on the wire, since it is so short. how could I bypass it? there is a wire coming from the crankcase going to a thingy, then the switch.

Have you tried a new plug??