FD Seeker

I just bought a very well maintained (I think) 93 that has 125K miles. It runs well, but it's filling my garage with a strong gas smell. No apparent leaks underneath. I'm going to get a full inspection soon (better late than never), but does anyone have any idea what's going on? Anyone else experience this?

Terminator 2

Hey, I too, have smelled strong gas vapors, and dunno what's causing them? Old charcoal canister? I would like to get rid of this problem cuz it gets unbearable. So far since ownership, I have put 460 miles on the car, and I just drove it an hour and a half drive and it got so bad my eyes started burning. I don't think it's good that I drive it this way, and if anyone can answer I too would appreciate it. Thanks

7-sins

I would really check your Pulsation Dampener guys. I had the gas smell for about as long as I've owned my FD.... I thought it was somewhat normal. After seeing a puddle of fuel in my garage I started to get to work. I pulled off my upper intake manifold and could just bearly see the reflection of a puddle down on my block. The dampener is right before the primary injectors, when that goes bad it leaks fuel on top of the block. It is very unsafe to drive your car under those conditions. I decided to do the removal of it myself because of money issues. I removed...... upper intake manifold, IC hoses, alternator, ignition pack, solenoid rack, air control valve, and primary injectors. All that just to get the little thing out. You might be able to cut a few corners but I decided to get it all out and do a silicone hose job while under there. I am glad I got to when when I did..... there was a puddle about 3" deep of fuel sitting on my block. I will include a link on here for an FC... it's just about the same.

http://home.earthlink.net/~burntoast...iondamper.html

Chris

FD Seeker

Yeah, I've been seeing a lot about the Pulsation Dampener now in the forum. I contacted Tri Point Engineering for a look at the car. They said it could also be fuel injectors ($300 each x2 plus labor ) and one other hose (?) issue. Basically, if I took care of everything, I'm looking at $1,100!

How difficult was it to remove the manifold etc. as a home job?

7-sins

Well...... let me see here. The manifold it self is not that hard to get off. I have done it before because of vacuum line issues. Once that is off you can get a lot better look at your engine. I was trying to remove the solenoid rack and saw you had to remove the alternator...... I guess I was a little freaked out by not getting the belt back to the right tension. I looked at PFS and they wanted about $400 that was just to replace the dampener. After looking around on the forum and hearing from people who took their engine apart for the silicone hose job, I thought maybe it wont be that hard.

So I took a look at it and went for it, got that off, not too much of a problem. Once that is off you can see 4 screws on the side of the solenoid rack, that’s what’s holding that on. *Be careful not to strip them!!!* They strip really easy and mine at least were in there tight. There are also 3 or 4 screws on the other side as well, they are really hard to get any leverage on because the firewall is right there. My screws wouldn’t come out and were about to be striped so I used a pair of vice grips to get in there and get them started to turn. Needle nose vice grips would have been great but the pair I had were not that high quality. I used a normal pair and had to remove the ignition pack to reach better. I am sure you can get the rack out w/o pulling all that out but it might give you a little more room.

Once you get the rack loose you need to pull off the electrical connectors and some of the hoses. A lot of hoses can stay connected because they go from like a solenoid to another. I labeled a few of the hoses and nipples with some tape, just write numbers on the tape. The rack will pull out, you will get a better view of the dampener, and in my case the 3" deep bomb that was sitting there. To reach the dampener go ahead and pull of the Air Control Valve right above it. That is easy to remove, 3 nuts and a clamp, just be careful because there is a gasket in there. If it doesn't come off with the ACV then just leave it in its place. There are two screws on the dampener, I had to get the Primary injectors loose first, and then I could get a better angle on the screws. Once again vice grips came in real handy.

If you get to the dampener then you should be able to see any other fuel problem, everything is right there..... When I got the dampener off it looked fine to me, no signs of a leak. I hooked up my vacuum pump to it and held my finger over the other hole. It would not hold vacuum for crap and you could hear the air leaking. So I ordered the part from mazdatrix... it was like $120. Putting everything back together is going to be a task.....


Get a friend to help you who knows a good amount about cars.
Take your time; I expect my car to be in the garage for about 2 weeks. If you don't have a silicone hose job go get some hose from http://www.bakerprecision.com/hosetech.htm 35ft 4mm & 10ft 6mm. If you don't do the whole thing at least do the hoses under the manifold so you wont have to go through that again. Instead of putting those stripped screws back in your solenoid rack go out and buy some small bolts that are the same size. They will save you some time if you pull solenoid rack off again. You may want to even send your manifold & alternator off to get chrome polished. If I had more cash it would have been on my list. There are a lot of things you can do to your engine and you sure do learn a lot more about your motor with everything out of the car. It isn't that hard of a task it just takes time and patients. If a 18 year old can do it then I'm sure most other people can.

Anyway good luck with your choice :1party: , if you have any other questions then ask. Also here is a good hose job site that might come in handy:

http://rx7.voodoobox.net/howto/vachose/vacjob.html

FD Seeker

Thanks for spending all that time to describe the process. Much appreciated!

I'm still considering doing it myself... but it sounds like it might take more time that I really have. I'm also a little worried that the fuel smell could be one of the other two more expensive possibilities. I hope the shop is honest enough to give me the right (and hopefully cheaper) diagnosis.

Got my fingers crossed!

What's the deal with the silicone hose job? What benefit does that have?

7-sins

No problem. I know when I had this problem no one really described it all to me and I was like "Yeah it might be the dampener but it still runs fine so. . ."

Tri point should be good, I would trust any rotary shop over Mazda. Leaky injectors is what I thought at first too until I took it all apart. I really do think yours is the dampener but 125k is a lot of miles so you never know. I have 65k with a Mazda reman at 60k. I guess when the mechanics put the reman engine in they didn't do a real thorough job because I've had a few problems.

The silicone hose job replaces all your rubber vacuum hoses with silicone. After a while they tend to get brittle and crack or pop off. Silicone wont get brittle, also when you do the hose job you put a little adhesive on the ends so they wont pop off. I know PFS charges 500 for the hose job alone, so its good to get it done with a chance like this. It's more of a reliability mod just so you don't have to worry about anything under the intake manifold(vacuum wise).

FD Seeker

Well, Tripoint is saying the primary fuel injectors are leaking, which is causing the fuel smell. They're recommending I replace the pulsation dampener too. And, since they have to go through the "hard and brittle" hoses to get to the injectors, they're saying I should do the silicone hose job as well.

Bad news: I'm now looking at $1,500
Good news: I'm not sure there is any good news. I guess I'll at least get one typical reliability mod out of the way

Flybye

Have you tried to pressurize the fuel system? This will at least help you to find exacty where the leak is at. Here's how:


Connect the diagnosis connector terminals F/P and GND with a jumper wire

Turn the ignition switch on for approximately 10 seconds and check for fuel leaks.

Turn the ignition switch off, and remove the jumper wire.

The diagnostic block is beside the battery and very close to the fuse panel holding the circut-open relay. It is labeled. The diagnostic block looks like it's separated into two halves: the outboard half containing three rows of connections, and the inboard half, containing two rows. Inboard refers to the center of the engine, outboard refers to the drivers side quarter panel.

The two terminals for the jumper wire are in the inboard half of the connector, on the only complete row. Connect the second and fourth connectors together with a wire. These are counted from the one at the nose of the car being the first, to the one nearest the windshield being the sixth.

Attempt to draw diagnostic connector as follows:

__o o____ o o
__o x o x o o

__o o o o o o
_o o o o o o o
___o o___o o

This is what it should look like, if your standing at the drivers front wheel, looking at he diagnostic block The X's indicate the location of the terminals for the jumper wire used to short the fuel pump and prime the system.

FD Seeker

But without seeing the damage myself, I can't help but feel that they're just telling me to replace the most expensive parts! I have to trust them.

My car has been with them for four days now and I'm having RX withdrawals.

Again though, thanks all for sharing your knowledge - this forum is ****!