Prolly not a float but I would think that you are in the right area by your description. Before pulling the carb look that 1) the fuel cap vent is open and 2) if there is any indication of debris in the fuel line. The way these are designed, lots of grass seem to build up around the cap. and could be inside. They pull the fuel up from the bottom of the tank through a plastic straw. Sometimes this straw gets cracked and draws air. Or closes due to debris. In fact this is old enough to have a fuel line that is getting mushy. What I do in case like this is run a length of fuel line from the pump into a supply can and take it for run. If there is no change, give the carb a once through. Yours may have an accelerator pump on the side of the carb w/ 3 screws. If so, ensure the passage to it is clear.

Another thing that happens with these are that one ignition coil intermittently works. Usually as it warms, it miss fire or not at all. So it is more like , loosing power- getting an anemic sounding engine with maybe some popping. I thought that I would toss that in there just in case our descriptive terms were different somehow.

Thanks for the info. I'll focus on the fuel system first and see what I get there. It definitely seems fuel related. I installed a fuel shut off valve in the fuel line, and replaced all of the easily accessible fuel line at that time, but its original from the fuel filter back to the tank. I use the shutoff only in the fall to stall it out of gas when I park it for the winter. When it starts surging to nearly stalling, if I shut the fuel off until its just about to stall and then slowly open it, it sometimes settles it down for a little while. Thats how I limped it along last summer. This year it hasn't done it at all until last night, but it needs to be fixed. If I can get the fender/footboard body assembly out of the way, maybe I'll replace the rest of the fuel line while I have it torn apart anyways. I've been wanting to check on the fan on top of the trans anyways. I'll post what I find and if anything solves the issue this weekend.