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This happened to me years ago one night, miles from home. It was 2 AM after leaving a club in Hollywood. After driving less than a mile I noticed a strong smell of petrol and pulled over to investigate. It was apparent that fuel was spewing from the SU's float bowl vent tube all over the engine bay and exhaust manifold. Knowing SU's well, I assumed that either the float valve was stuck in the open position or the float had sunk, keeping the valve open. After rummaging around the boot and door bins with a flashlight (torch) I found the bits to get me home. This consisted of a plastic bag, a rubber band, a pencil and a small hose clamp. First I removed the air filter, then the fuel line at the carb. Then I placed the plastic bag over the mouth of the carb, securing it with the rubber band. After that I stuck the pencil into the end of the fuel hose and secured it with the hose clamp. At times you can just whack the float bowl with a hammer to jar loose a stuck float valve (similar procedure as with SU fuel pumps) but I didn't have a hammer on hand that night. The 1 1/2" carbs were on an aluminium S/T manifold that interconnects between carbs by design so my hope was that I could get the engine to run on just one carb. Well it did! I couldn't manage to get the car much past 35 MPH for the next 30 miles, so I avoided the freeway, just took back roads and got home just fine. Of course I worried about the S engine running lean on 2 cylinders and burning up pistons and such but none of that happened as after fixing the errant carb the car ran as well as before. Thinking back now, glad it didn't happen after the exhaust headers got hot! At times it's nice to have "Roadkill" (the tv show) skills...