1948 A won't stay running

When it dies, is the governor opening up the throttle to try and rev it up???? Any smoke out the stack then????

Have you tried it with the air cleaner lower bowl removed????

On the mag, the only thing that comes to mind is the centrifugal mechanism that uses the spring and trip at less than 250 RPM, then goes to direct drive which would be like right shortly after start up. After it dies if you checked the spark at hand crank speeds, she would agian fire, but maybe not immediately after she reached 250 RPM, but that should only be like a few seconds, not 5 or 10 as you indicate.

Let us know what the flow test indicates and if you think it sparks at hand crank speeds but is not firing when she dies, and we will go from there.

Good Luck and God Bless, Ol John T Nordhoff in Indiana

~If your mag has a wire hooked to the shorting post on the side of it, disconncet that wire to see if that wire is grounding somewhere & causing a shutdown.

~Probably the next thing to check is that the choke PLATE is actually opening, [only applies to a rod actuated choke with the tin cover with the spring inside it]. Just because the choke rod is in the off position & the external lever is in the off position doesn't mean the plate inside the carb is open. The choke lever pins have a habit of jumping over each other & not operating properly. [common problem]...If that choke stays on after starting it will stall in a hurry.

~You might want to see if the carb float bowl vent is open [in the main casting on the top of float bowl, should have a couple of baffles in the hole]. If you don't want to pull the carb back off you might try running it with a hose hooked to the bowl drain & run above the carb top [do not plug the hose] , if it stays running then suspect the bowl vent. If it still doesn't run your problem probably isn't bowl vent related.