blackenedESP

A couple of weeks ago I did some work on my car: spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter, battery, and battery terminals. Since then, whenever I turn my heater on, it smells of gas. Not in your face kind of stuff but you can smell it. It goes away when the car is moving. I only notice it when the car is still. It seems to be at it's strongest when I first start my car up. From what I've seen, there is no gas leaking from the fuel filter or anything. Is it possible I could have knocked something loose or whatever while doing the few things I listed above? I'm gonna give my car a good check tomorrow to make sure, I just wanted to see if anyone had an idea.

Obsequious1

Sounds like its under the hood. I installed a fuel pressure guage and tied it into my schrader valve. I didn't use thread sealant tape and it was leaking a small amount while I was driving. I could smell gas coming through the air condition vents. Check your engine while its running.

blackenedESP

Yeah it seems to smell around the engine. It seemed to be the strongest around the distributor. Again, it's not as if you just poured gasoline in front of you but you do get a whiff of it. I still haven't seen anything on the ground at all, in front or back of the car though. I've read things about people suggesting a leaky heater core, fuel hoses, and injectors. Like I said, this just started after I did the work to my car so I must have done something to cause it. I was tugging on the fuel lines to get them off the fuel filter pretty good until I found out they made a little tool for it haha. But again, there's no leak back there, at least externally, so I don't know if that did it. Some of those spark plugs are in tight spots, I don't know if there was something in there that I could have knocked lose or whatever.

blackenedESP

OK well I drained, flushed, and refilled the coolant today and stumbled into another problem that could possibly be related to the gas smelling issue.

I was following Haynes manual on doing this. I drained the radiator's fluid, quite a bit came out. Half of an average sized bucket. The manual then said to drain fluid from the block by undoing 2 drain plugs that are on each side of the block. I could not find these plugs for the life of me. I searched online for a few minutes and saw someone had said there are no drain plugs on the block, the radiator is the only thing to drain. So I continued with flushing the radiator with fresh water until the water ran clear and cleaned out the reservoir tank.

I then refilled the radiator fully with a pre-mixed 50/50 coolant, as well as filled the reservoir tank to the full hot mark. The manual then said to leave one of the caps off, run the engine until the upper radiator hose becomes hot, turn it off, let the engine cool, and top off the coolant if necessary. I ran my engine for a good 10 minutes, the temperature gauge was at half way like it usually gets to, but the radiator hose wasn't warm at all. I didn't have to top off the coolant either. But then I realized, I wasn't getting any heat from my heater whatsoever. My car's heat came on quick and hot.

So I don't know if that has something to do with the coolant stuff I did or if it's possibly related to the suggested heater core problem.


EDIT: I was reading through the cooling and heating section of Haynes manual and I came across this... "Hot engine coolant heats the core, over which air passes to the interior of the vehicle..." I would assume the new coolant I just put in isn't getting hot enough to heat the core, and that's why I don't feel the upper radiator hose getting hot either. But the engine itself wasn't overheating according to the gauge so that means the coolant is making it's cycle, it's just not hot enough? Another bit here...it says if the engine takes a long time to warm up, the thermostat is probably stuck open. If the engine is running hot but the upper radiator hose isn't, the thermostat is probably stuck shut. I kind of have a mix there, the engine itself doesn't seem to take long to warm up and get to a normal temperature (according to the gauge) but the upper hose is not getting warm at all.

blackenedESP

anyone?

blackenedESP

Alright, so I was just outside checking on my car again. I turned it on and let it run for about 15 minutes. I am getting heat but the car seemed to be taking longer to warm up. That or it's just me not realizing when it actually gets to the normal temperature. Neither the upper or lower radiator hose was warm at all though. I think i'm just gonna replace the thermostat anyway just for the hell of it, they're cheap.

Regardless, that still doesn't solve my gas-like smell problem. I attached a picture to show where I'm getting the strongest whiff of it. This picture isn't my car actual car, just a picture I found on the internet and threw a couple of circles on.

yooper

If you didn't bleed the cooling system there may not be any coolant in the top hose, also coolant may not be near the temp sensor so it may not read temp. How much coolant did you put in? Same or less than what came out. Some are a bare to bleed. If car has been drove for ten miles and still runs chances are you have the air out of it. Ha-Ha. If the top hose is still cool, temp gauge in the middle, stat still has not opened, car is not up to operating temp. If the stat doesn't open the car will enentually over heat.

Obsequious1

You might have an air pocket too. Run the engine with the radiator cap off until it gets up to normal temperature. Top off the fluid if needed. Turn off the car and try squeezing the bottom hose a couple times. Sometimes that will rid of any air pockets. After that, start the car up and watch the fluid and see if the therostat is opening.

Baddog

Same thing happened to me in my DD. Fuel was leaking from the injectors, evaporating on the manifold and giving me screaming headaches in the cockpit from inhaling it as it came through the vents. Get them looked at and perhaps purged, even a little fuel in the engine bay can spell disaster (FIRE).

blackenedESP

Back to the coolant issue real quick, it seems like I just didn't burp the thing enough. I took off the radiator cap and squeezed the upper hose a bit and had room for some more coolant. Heat comes on fine now, nice and hot.