Carb 78 woofs and dies

I pulled my car out of the garage fine. I let it idle whilst I got something. After a few minutes, I heard the idle speed drop (as you'd expect) and then the engine died. I switched it off to go finish what I was doing.

Coming back, I tried again and could only get a woof out of her before she died again. It isn't up to temp, just luke warm. I can hear the fuel pump running fine and I can smell fuel getting into the bowls. But no amount of cranking or putting pedal to the floor can get the engine to catch. It's just that first woof and then nothing. If I let the fuel pump run for a while I get a bigger woof and it seems like she might start. But then nothing happens, maybe just a tiny hint of a catch after 15 to 20 seconds cranking.

Plugs are dry (at least the easy to access bank I checked).

I left the car for 90 minutes to cool right down but the same's happening.

There's fuel in the car (about 6 litres). The car is sitting on a slight slope, maybe 5 degrees left down to right. It's a dry sunny day.

Any clues what might be going on here?

 

I'm sure I don't need to go to EFI to solve this The car's been starting & running beautifully in all weathers ... until today.

 

I'll take a look at the fuse blocks this morning. I can certainly change the plugs but there's not even a hint of a whiff of fuel on them. Taking them out immediately after trying to start, I should surely be sniffing something if that's the problem. :/

 

Umm, yes, as I said in my o/p, there is plenty of fuel. I can smell the stuff.

The pump runs and sounds like it is working fine, though I have no proof beyond smelling the fuel & hearing (and feeling) it run. For now, I've pulled the plugs and will put in a new set hopefully tomorrow. A few are perfect but others were in various stages of wear.

 

Well, new plugs changed nothing :/

I don't see any sign of melts or heat problems at those fuses. But I'll check for continuity etc tomorrow. As you say, with dual dizzies, at least one bank should succeed. I'm wondering if the fuel pump is failing.

But it sounds fine and at least some fuel is pumped through (if I leave ignition on for the fuel pump to run, I can burn that fuel off by starting but I get no further than the woof). In addition, there is no smell of fuel at the plugs. Can the pump fail but seem to sound ok? I don't know how the system works. Could it succeed to pump fuel on the ignition key but not open up with the throttle? (throttle linkage appears to be working fine).

 

I put it in personally from a can & there was a little in there already. Do you think the 308 needs more than 6l in the tank to fire her up? In addition, she started up easily with the 6l when I pulled her out of the garage. After that, she didn't idle for more than 5-10 minutes.

Easily done & I'll certainly give it a go if others agree. It definitely sounds like an out of fuel issue (which is why the first thing I did was to go out and fill my emergency fuel can).

 

Thanks Steve, I'll try some more diagnostics. Since some fuel is burning off with a woof, there must be a spark. And since all plugs smell dry, it seems consistent across all cylinders. My tune hasn't changed btw, I smell fuel in the engine bay after the pump is on at the ignition (it's even detectable when I pushed the car back in the garage a half hour after). But plugs show no sign of unburnt fuel.

 

Well. Another 6 litres of fuel did it. I'm very surprised by this. I had driven her for about 125 miles and arrived home on a red fuel light but without no hint of power loss etc. Next day, I put 6 litres in and drove her out into the yard where she idled for 10 minutes. No red fuel light. After that, she wouldn't restart.

Thanks to all for your help & I hope it's useful to others that if you think that a 5 litre can (even overfilled to 6) of fuel is enough, it isn't. That's a little over 1 1/2 US gallons.

It seems 308's need 10 litre cans of emergency fuel, not 5!

 

Yes indeed, I thought about that. It was in my o/p. It was sitting on a slope left side higher than right rather than front-rear. Is the drain on one side? That would answer it!

 

Yep, that'd be it. I was sloping driver to passenger. Really not by much at all. Obviously enough!

btw, my 308's a US car, Patrick.