anyone kow anything about Weber carbs?

Too much air getting in mate. I know you're thinking that loads of air is a good thing, but I once done a similar thing on an Imp, and found that until I restricted the amount of air getting in, I had to blank off a pipe going in to the crankcase breather by standing on the pipe with my foot to get the car to start! Because too much air's getting in, you're running seriously lean, so you cant get it started, try adjsusting the fuel/air mixture, and failing that try and work something else out to stop all that air from getting to the engine, or you just won't be able to start. I'm not sure what you would want to do to it, as I found it quite easy to sort by connecting the aforementioned pipe to the crankcase breather into the K&N Filters, so that there was one less source of air, but drilling holes may not be practical for you. the strong smell of fuel was probably you flooding the poor thing with petrol, but don't worry, no harm done. See if any of that helps!