504 governor, and stoopid stoopid stoopid

Hi all
I'm back to working on the 504 governor problems.
First, I want to remove the throttle lever and install a new friction gasket. I removed the nut, but the lever won't come off the shaft. The drawings make it look like the nut fastened to the governor shaft, but on the tractor it looks like the lever is pressed onto the shaft. Should it come off easily? I can't pry it off with a screwdriver.

Second, now that I've reassembled the governor, I have the original problem: it seems normal on the lower half of the rpm, but the throttle has to be manually held in place for the faster rpms;

Ideas would be helpful, please.

Now for the stoopid stuff that makes me think I should put down my wrenches and go fishing.... While pondering the governor issue, I decided to pull off the pipe from the air filter to the carburetor because the connecting hose was shot and partly burned. When I removed it, Holy Egad, there is a rag in the pipe!!! How long has that been there???
It took a while to recall that several weeks ago, while working on the air filter, I had power washed more of the engine that I could reach with the filter gone. To keep water from going into the carburetor, I partially stuffed a rag into the pipe intake. I guess I forgot about it when I started the tractor the day after the wash. Guess what happened to the rag. No wonder it wouldn't do anything but idle. The good news is that there was nothing wrong with any parts in the governor. The bad news is I spent about $150 and a couple weeks rebuilding it anyway.

We live and we learn dont we?

Had about the same thing happen to me a couple yrs.ago on a M in the dead of winter and working outside. Ran fine with the breather hose off and just shortly after putting hose back on and then started acting up again. Oil bath was full of ice. First thing that I check now when haveing a simialer problem.

Try doing that with a combine during wheat harvest. That will take you exactly three days and lots more expensive parts to figure out. I still use some of the words we put together that week.

once the nut is off, the throttle lever will come off of the splined shaft, but it may take more pursuading than a screwdriver. I had to pull the shaft assembly out of the dash by disconnecting the linkage below and the three bolts on the dash that hold the throttle plate in place. Then I put it in a vise and tapped the shaft through the lever with a brass drift & hammer.

Thanks Pete, I'll proceed with that in a couple days.
Winter's coming; I've got to get theses things running right.
Thanks to notjustair and cuby for the humorous stories that make me remember I'm not the only one learning!!
Jim