Strong gas smell in exhaust - fixed!
Hey everybody,
I have been pretty absent from the forums for most of the summer. I have been really enjoying my first summer with the feature, though. I'll blame it on that.
I wanted to pass along some knowledge that I gained from having to troubleshoot a strange problem with my car.
I went to drive it to work one morning (hey it was going to be a nice day) and after I turned it over, I noticed that the idle was a little rough. I backed it out of the garage and I could smell a strong odor of gas in the exhaust. In fact, it was so bad that the passenger side tailpipe was emitting a nasty cloud of white gasoline-infused smoke. As the car warmed up, it started coming out of the driver's side pipe as well. I drove it up the block and left a vapor trail of smoke. So, I turned around and put it back in the garage.
My first thought was that I had a fuel injector stuck open. No problem, I had a spare set of stock injectors from my 95 Mustang. I ordered the correct gaskets and swapped them in two weekends ago on a Saturday. I also found a rotting vacuum hose under the upper intake and fixed it at the same time. Of course, the problem didn't go away.
So, over the course of the next week, I did some reading in How to Understand and Modify Ford Fuel Injection & Electronic Engine Control by Charles Probst. I ran the Key On Engine Off test and passed. I then ran the Engine On tests in the ECC and got no codes what so ever. So, the book says that is either a pass or a problem with the test circuit. I assumed that the circuit was fine since it would run all of the tests.
That book contains some useful information on Oxygen Sensors. The only other thing that would make make the A/F ration rich would be failed or failing O2s. So, I changed them. Problem solved. The passenger side on was dented (externally) and it was a different color than the driver's side. So, it didn't appear to be operating correctly or at all.
Hopefully, this will help somebody else. Good luck!
I have been pretty absent from the forums for most of the summer. I have been really enjoying my first summer with the feature, though. I'll blame it on that.
I wanted to pass along some knowledge that I gained from having to troubleshoot a strange problem with my car.
I went to drive it to work one morning (hey it was going to be a nice day) and after I turned it over, I noticed that the idle was a little rough. I backed it out of the garage and I could smell a strong odor of gas in the exhaust. In fact, it was so bad that the passenger side tailpipe was emitting a nasty cloud of white gasoline-infused smoke. As the car warmed up, it started coming out of the driver's side pipe as well. I drove it up the block and left a vapor trail of smoke. So, I turned around and put it back in the garage.
My first thought was that I had a fuel injector stuck open. No problem, I had a spare set of stock injectors from my 95 Mustang. I ordered the correct gaskets and swapped them in two weekends ago on a Saturday. I also found a rotting vacuum hose under the upper intake and fixed it at the same time. Of course, the problem didn't go away.
So, over the course of the next week, I did some reading in How to Understand and Modify Ford Fuel Injection & Electronic Engine Control by Charles Probst. I ran the Key On Engine Off test and passed. I then ran the Engine On tests in the ECC and got no codes what so ever. So, the book says that is either a pass or a problem with the test circuit. I assumed that the circuit was fine since it would run all of the tests.
That book contains some useful information on Oxygen Sensors. The only other thing that would make make the A/F ration rich would be failed or failing O2s. So, I changed them. Problem solved. The passenger side on was dented (externally) and it was a different color than the driver's side. So, it didn't appear to be operating correctly or at all.
Hopefully, this will help somebody else. Good luck!
Comments
Go figure.