1949 Norton ES2 Magneto model

Smoke from the carb may be from overadvanced ignition , wrong valve timing or  no tappet clearance. All would make starting difficult.

I'm in east Devon and could help you check the obvious stuff if you get stuck?

Dan 

Check the simple stuff first, plug, mag points, plug cap, valve/pushrod clearance, timing if you can and the pilot jet - these are easily blocked and will hinder starting.

Starting procedure is tickle carb, retard timing a bit on the mag lever, bring up to compression, use the decompressor to get it over tdc and let the kick start come back up, then give a nice smooth sweeping kick.

Let is know how you get on.

Dan

A simple check.  Does the engine have compression ? ,can the Kickstart hold  your weight for 3/4 seconds.This will give some idea of the condition of the Valve sealing.

Was it going before the current problems? If so, things like timing shouldn't be too far out. But if it's been reassembled, there could be all sorts of things, from valve timing, ignition timing (is advance and retard working properly?) , even oil lines the wrong way round. Points gap, plug gap, loose connection...

New carb might well need a different starting technique from before. You won't have had a chance to set the pilot circuit yet ( usually start 1+1/2 turns out to begin with  lots of web sites and manuals give amal instructions and if course if it's new the sheet came with it...). At least if it ran before, the valve timing is probably not much wrong.