Put new gas and new oil in and tried to start. Would stall in few seconds when could start. There is fluid dripping from the filter area

VERY COMMON problem with gas engines.

I recommend starting all your gasoline using machine ever month or two. Let them run a few minutes. Same with cars/trucks.

Start you r car/truck every couple months and drive forward and backward several feet as well.

If you have a gas shutoff valve, turn it off and run engine till all gas is out of carb before storing.

Gas turns to a hard lacquer is sitting too long. remove air cleaner covers, Pour some real good (strong/thorough) carb cleaner in carb and leave sit over nite. If that doesn't work, do it another nite. If not working yet, you may have to take carb off and open it up. Be careful there are little tiny parts in there.

Previous owner had way overfilled crankcase oil. Oil had gotten into carb and clogged air filter. Drained oil to correct level. Ran engine but kept cutting off-see above. Took off carb cover cleaned housing and ran without air filter-ran fine. Unsuccessfully tried to clean air filter with gas-did not work. Apparently, the engine could run just long enough to exhaust the air in the old filter and cut off which is why it would start back up after a few seconds. Bought new air filter-whole thing-about $15 at Carquest. Put in some carb cleaner and installed the new filter and it runs perfectly.

Check spark and try a can of starting fluid to see if it is a fuel issue.

Check the oil. Quite a few cars do that when they are low.

its could be the fuel pump, if its going bad then it could be causing stall and a gas hose could be bad to and is only allowing a little gas to motor causing it to stall also

oil catch pan hydraulic cat and ratchet with metric sockets adjustable filter rachet lift car front get on under with oil pan rachets and on the motors side of the car you'll find a bolt on the crank pan just a lonley screw on the bottom of a pan close to where your under loosen screw first then put oil pan under try and loosen screw slowly so when it lets go you can cntrol the flow a little so the oil pan can be put in the proper place to catch the oil let it empty till there is nothing but droplets return screw and tighten back on do not over do it the treads on the pan can be harmed if you over tighten then locate filter put oild pan under filter loosen and the same way as the screw do with the fiter . Before putting in new filter on put some fresh oil on the rubber ring and inside just a little so it goes on smooth your finished under the car now go up top hood open you can put car down by now find oil cap and fill in oil

1.) put aside about $50 that you are ging to spend... period
2.) drain the oil and remove the old oil filter
3.) install a new oil filter, add new 30W oil
4.) remove all 8 spark plug wire from the 8 spark plugs
5.) remove the 8 spark plugs
6.) spray about 5 seconds of WD40 into each of 8 spark plug holes
7.) spray the remainder of the can into each of the 2 valve covers thru the EGR holes (pull out the EGR valve first)
8.) making certain that you have a full battery charge, turn the starter switch to START for about 5 seconds... if your engine turns then your internals are not frozen... that's good
9.) open another can of WD40 and spray equal amounts into ecah of 8 spark plug holes a second time
10.) turn the start switch on for another 5 seconds and listen for strange sounds... by the way without the spark plugs the engine will rotate more quickly than you normally expect... not a problem because as it turns it is lubricating your internal parts
11.) wait a minute and then turn it on for for about 10-20 seconds while listening for scraping or knocking sounds... if none heard then you are all lubed up and ready to reinstall the spark plugs.
Install new plugs or sandpaper the old with the correct gap ( I believe .035")
12.) if you didn't mark the plug wires not a problem... Google '78 Chevy Distributor Firing Order to find terminal #1 on the distributor cap... usually about the 1 o'clock position
13.) install #1 wire to #1 sparkplug... the driver's side front closest to the radiator
14.) the distributor rotates like a clock (clockwise) and the numbers on the clock starting at #1 is 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2.... this is the firing order in a clockwise direction
15.) take the next plug wire #8 and connect it to #8 spark plug
Note: the spark plug numbers are cast into the top of the intake manifold for easier identification
16.) conect the remaining wires to their respective plugs
17.) make certain that you have a full battery charge, some gas in the tank (gas evaporates over 3 years) and a full radiator.
18.) Turn the starter switch and listen for the engine to start
19.) If it doesn't start the first time, try again and wait for the gas to reach the carburetor.... try again
20.) if it still doesn't start spray some engine strating fluid into the carbuetor throat and try again... it should start
21.) if it starts but doesn't keep running then repeat step 20. unitl the gas reaches the carburetor and continues to run on its own...!

Sounds like your gas tank is not breathing properly. try this: the next time you run the tiller and it begins to stall out, try loosening the gas cap. It should start running again. This means that the gas cap is clogged. Unclog it or purchase another one.

Jim

Have you checked the ignition timing? Maybe you need to turn the distributor to the left or right if you don't have the timing light gun