suddenly down on power

afternoon all,

so yesterday I took the X for a blast. I have been using the car all over the winter and in every weather (including the recent snow) with no problems at all. I had a 30 minute drive, stopped for an hour (coffee with Dad) and then got back in.

She was a little reluctant to start, seemed to spin over for longer than usual (5 seconds, maybe) before catching and running fine.

Set off home and all is well, she is running fine. There is a steep-ish hill about 2 minutes into the journey, and I had an open road so I nailed it up the hill. I got about halfway up before she started to burp and splutter, totally losing power to the point of cutting out, leaving me to coast up onto the pavement to keep out of the way of other traffic.
She started on full choke and drove fine with full choke (despite being at working temp) for the rest of the journey (about 10 miles). Whenever I put the choke in, she started to lose power again. I made it home ok like that, dumped her on the drive and haven't had a chance to start looking yet.

'82 model, standard carb, points ignition, manual choke conversion, half a tank of petrol. She hasn't been serviced for 6 months or so but as I said, she made the first half of the journey absolutely fine and only played up on the way back after I thrashed her uphill for half a mile or so.

My inclination, given that she runs fine on full choke, is to change the fuel filter and clean out the carb. It has to be a blockage somewhere in the primary line, surely?

Oh, and change the oil & filter now those are full of petrol...

Dirt in the carb somewhere. Good luck finding it. Lots of little orifices to check apart from the routine.
Why is the oil full of petrol?

More fun with the airline and tiny bits of carb everywhere...oh well

having driven 10 or so miles on half choke, I'm assuming that at least some of the petrol washed its way past the rings into the sump. It was due a change later this year anyway

One source of petrol in the sump is a leaky mechanical petrol pump diaphragm, a potentially serious issue. Worth checking if in doubt

The fuel pump my well be the culprit, if you have a mechanical one. It would answer all the questions.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the pump, it appears to be working just fine.

The car was down on power when at working temp. Applying manual choke rectified this. Almost certain it's a carb issue. I'll strip and blow it through with the air line this weekend and see if that rectifies the issue.

As for petrol in the oil, this was an assumption of mine based on having driven the car 12 miles with the choke full on. It seems reasonable to assume that having the choke on full will have allowed some petrol to wash past the rings and ended up in the sump, mixing with the engine oil.