Generator help

I have a westerbeke 4.5bcgb. It has been running fine all year and just now when I went to start it up it was hard to start and when it did start it was idling very low on the verge of stalling. After a while it eventually idles up to almost where it should be. As it’s running I am getting back fires out of the carb every so often. Has anyone. I changed the fuel/water separator and got a lot of air out when removing the old filter. Has anyone had this issue or may know what’s going on? Could it be plugs or more of a fuel issue?

Back fire out of the carb indicates a lean burn condition typically but check to make sure the choke is open.

Could be one of those or both. You really need to stay on top of the maintenance with WB gennys. Go by the book with fuel filters, gas, plugs, oil changes, valve adjustments, impeller changes and they will not let you down. Small three cylinder engines are just plain funky. Do the maintenance and they quietly purr and make power.

Check the belt and linkage to the governor make sure they're attached

I replaced spark plugs, rebuilt carb and the generator still very hard to start if it starts at all. I disconnected the coil wire from the distributor cap and plugged in a high voltage hot box that is powered from its own power source and the gennerator started right up and ran great. Now leaning toward a reduced spark issue.