87 carb wont start, help!

[sciroccodave]

Right, basically the car started playing up on the way home the other day, idling poorly and basically cutting out at anything other than full throttle. I stopped, had a jiggle under the engine bay, got it running and made it home. Went to start it today and it wont fire at all. Initially as it had symptoms similar to my passat, i thought it was the coil. Having replaced this it's made no difference, doh. Now, heres the baffling bit, each plug has a strong spark, the coil has a strong spark, the dizzy seems fine. The earth straps are ok. When i was testing each plug. It actually fired when i had one of the ht leads removed and earthed (to test the spark), as soon as it was plugged back on to the plug, it would not fire. I tried again with a different plug lead, same again. Once removed and held near an earth, strong spark and the engine fired, roughly but something at least, the plugs are wet, and the fuel pump works. Im baffled! Any thoughts? Much appreciated. Dave

[Nate]

start by cleaning out the dizzy cap and checking for any signs of arcing inside it.

a set of these might be useful so you can see if it's actually sparking when the plugs are in and the leads are on

[sciroccodave]

I've had each plug out with the lead attached and they all have a good strong spark, the dizzy is clean and has no cracks. It's very perplexing. Bit of a breakthrough today, I have found the carb inlet rubber has deteriorated and as such is leaking. However I can't see this leading to the car suddenly dying and not firing at all? Or am I wrong... I am also trying to source the rubber gasket. It's on a webber carb if this makes any difference? Thanks again

Dave

[Nate]

if you mean the rubber gasket between the carb on the manifold, yes that will stop it running. it sucks in air thru the leak, which makes it too lean to run

[sciroccodave]

Ok. It just seems a little odd because I have known it to be leaking for a couple of weeks, and it's been fine and then just suddenly died. Like an electricaly problem. I am about to buy the gasket but not sure if there the same for the webber and the pooberg? Thanks again

Dave