Good news! My old machine is now running wonderfully! Details below!
OM617YOTAs WAG turned out to be 90% correct. While the carburetor was indeed leaking from where turned out not to be the gaskets. I ordered the rebuild kit and redid most of the internals (The only thing I didn't replace were the welch plugs which were still in great shape) In the end this turned out to be a thing as there was quite a lot of debris which needed to be cleaned out anyways so i'm glad that I got the kit.
The real kicker is that the leak was actually coming from the end of the throttle shaft which was VERY difficult to see. I removed said shaft and unfortunately there are no seals which could be replaced so the shaft must have simply worn down over time. I was afraid that I would have to buy a whole new carburetor but a bit of barn yard engineering presented a solution. The side of the shaft which was leaking has the throttle spring pushing against the body of the carb. I thought that if I managed to get an o-ring in between the two that it just might seal. A rubber o-ring was too thick but amazingly the carb rebuild kit came with a paper gasket which did and much to my surprise it worked! I'm not sure how long this setup will last but for now all is well!
