1947 Model M Stalling Issue

I have a 1947 Model M that's been having some issues for quite some time. A while back it began stalling intermittently. I checked the spark plugs and noticed that they had a substantial amount of carbon residue on them. This made me think that too rich a mixture was being delivered to the cylinders and the carburetor was the culprit. I removed and disassembled the carb, replaced gaskets, soaked & cleaned all parts, and reinstalled it. There was no improvement.

After this I just dealt with the problem because A) I was too lazy to look further, and B) it didn't stall frequently enough to make it a big inconvenience, it was just intermittent.

As time passed by, the problem grew worse, to the point where on it's bad days, the tractor is almost unusable. At this point I am thinking the governor is the issue because the problem becomes dramatically worse when I am going up a hill and/or pulling a load. It stalls nearly 100% of the time. And when going down hill, the engine races so hard it sounds like it's going to blow itself to pieces.

I've never worked on a governor before, I plan on removing it for examination within the next few days. What exactly should I be looking for to see if it is the source of my problem or not? Any tips you can suggest to help me troubleshoot this further would be greatly appreciated!

I would first look at your throttle connections. Make sure everything is tight and adjusted properly before ripping into the governor. Also, check and make sure you have your idle adjustment correct. If you don't have a manual, spend the few dollars for a reprint off of ebay and it will tell you how to check and adjust all of these things.

Did you remove and check the main jet for trash, and all ports, holes, and plugs? Completely strip and check, I mean every orifice, and the inlet screen if equipped. Sure sounds like it is just starving for fuel. Check fuel flow from the tank, then to the inlet elbow, through the float needle. Open the bowl drain and see if it is running a pencil sized stream for at least 30 seconds. When you go up a hill, if the throttle opens up, that is the governor releases its grip, it's not the governor...yet.

did you check the compression?

Did you put in a new set of spark plugs? We have an MT that was running terribly. Backfiring, no power under load, the engine would hunt up and down. Turned out to be one bad spark plug. Put new ones in and it runs great.