Ok, I get the convenience of 'Startomatic' but surely a remote 'watchkeeping' panel in the kitchen, or somewhere, wouldn't be too much of a come down?
A simple curcuit with a glow plug in place of the COV, on a timer before the starter kicked in, a solenoid on a timer to close the rack for shut down and a couple of extra gaskets under the cylinder to lower the compression ratio a bit would be enough.
An over temp. and a 'no volts from the alternator' shut down via the same solenoid would be about all thats required for the safety of the engine, if you wanted to avoid an overnight run, after a few cans, you could add a timer to shut down after 2/3 hours or whatever.
You'd still have to go down the shed to check the oil and fuel levels, so you don't loose the legit excuse to hide from SWMBO for half an hour or so each evening.
Having just swapped the motor in an '80's Land Rover I've got a flywheel and a starter motor spare, the OD of the flywheel is an inch or so larger than the pulley of the alternator on my 6/1 CS and I've scourced a 'weld in' taper lock bush for the 1 1/2" alternator shaft.
Hopefully in a couple of weeks or so I'll have time to lash it all together, the machining and welding is being done by a mate of the local shepherds, for whom I've sorted out a petrol genny that has had lots of of it's plumbing and wiring eaten by mice over the winter, so we're running on 'Mountain Time' here!
After that I'll think of something else.......
Cheers Stef