Chris_924s

I usually get around 28 mpg on the highway, 70 mph. around town about 23.
Julie. you know my rant about vacuum lines, so I;'ll spare you. Bad vacuum can cause surge, low MPG, poor idle- and a host of other problems, really pesky to trace.
Is it possible the J tube (intake )leaks?? you could pulling in too much air, and also be blowing unspent fuel right out your exhaust manifold.
I never thought injectors would go that fast- just a slow degredation of efficiency?!

facts are(?): Was running fine, then started running poorly.. vacuum lines are my guess.
I have no comment about the rich/ lean scenario. I dont know as much as others here about that.

Keep her going girl!! (patience is very thin around here too. worst decisions are the ones made in a hurry..)

triscadek

Could be a vac. leak at the manifold on cyl. 2/3 would lean it out too.

Devia

Well, I have soon good news, and some bad news, but still not solved; I had to go to work tonight, and I noticed that I was being a space hog, so I fired her up, and backed her up 4 feet; wouldn't you know it I smell gas EVERYWHERE!? Inside, outside; turned it off, had to get to work, had to leave it alone for now.

So, that's the bad news; the good news is that something broke, so now it can be fixed,heh.

Frank, I broke it, so I think you will have to come over here, next week - I am not moving the car until I know why there's gas smelling up the place, and then when it's safe to move it, I'll happily move her!

Of course I'm afraid it's the fuel pump - BOOM! Don't want to be a barbecue, you know. Or the fuel rail, but something definitely fuel related now.

I'll poke my head in there tomorrow, but very, very hesitant to start her up again, without a fire extinguisher!

- Julie

MichelleJD

Devia - Hang in there! You're doing so well bringing Kijo back to good health

Michael - 30 mpg in my 85.5 n/a with 250K+ miles!

89magic98

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Devia:
<strong>Well, I have soon good news, and some bad news, but still not solved; I had to go to work tonight, and I noticed that I was being a space hog, so I fired her up, and backed her up 4 feet; wouldn't you know it I smell gas EVERYWHERE!? Inside, outside; turned it off, had to get to work, had to leave it alone for now.

So, that's the bad news; the good news is that something broke, so now it can be fixed,heh.

Frank, I broke it, so I think you will have to come over here, next week - I am not moving the car until I know why there's gas smelling up the place, and then when it's safe to move it, I'll happily move her!

Of course I'm afraid it's the fuel pump - BOOM! Don't want to be a barbecue, you know. Or the fuel rail, but something definitely fuel related now.

I'll poke my head in there tomorrow, but very, very hesitant to start her up again, without a fire extinguisher!

- Julie</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">On my car, the fuel lines sprung two leaks, and were leaking gas all over the intake manifold (my fuel line routing is a little different from yours) - it goes behind the master cylinder as opposed to through the right fender. I found this with the car running! (Yikes!)

Maybe you could jumper the fuel pump power wire to +12v with the car turned off (pressurize the system without starting the car) and look for leaks. I think this is pin #4 on the 9 pin connector on the firewall behing the master cylinder. I did this on my car before.

I think there was a recall for the hose between the fuel pressure damper and the rail - that can leak over time as well.

Legoland951

Well, I always hate intermittent problems. See if you can get a visual on what is leaking and we'll see what parts we need to fix this beast.

SidViscous

Kjp has a good idea, but my paper trick is a little bit easier. If your loosing that much gas you'll probably be able to hear where it's leaking if you can fire up the fuel pump while it's running.

89magic98

Sid,

What is your paper trick? I search for "paper" and your user number, and didn't find it.

You don't need to undo the 9-pin connector in order to jump pin #4 to power, this should be super-simple. And the car does not have to be running to do it. Another advantage is that if the leak is under the hood, you are right there to "stop the experiment" immediately (as opposed to the other approach of unplugging the DME relay and jumping the connections there).

-Kevin

Devia

Thanks for the suggestions so far! I'm going in there, tomorrow, I am not worried, really. I think Lego had it right, that this car wants me to learn everything...maybe it wants me to do something special with it, but damned if I know what!

I did put 3 gallons in her today, had an emergency; drove 30 miles, and she's out of gas again, heh. After she sat after that, she did the fuel leak thing.

Any more ideas, please keep them flowing! The more I have to check out the more likely I am to figure this out in a timely fashion!

I think

SidViscous

What the ****. Used to be able to find it. Now it doesn't show up at all ?!?!?!?!?!

It's a conspiracy I tell you. John D is behind it. He's modified the search function so you could find it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blood will spill I tell you!!!!

Found it

Other way to check the DME relay and is field expidient and faster than the jumper bit is my patent pending Paper trick.
__________________________
Chris. Easy way to check the DME relay. Easier than making a jumper in your situation.

Pull it out and pry off the cover. You'll find two coils and the relay arms are pulled away from eachother. In ohter words at relax they are farther away from the coils, on energized they get pulled up and away from eachother.

So when you have the cap off get a piece of paper that you can fold up and jam in between the coils to push them into the energized position. When the relay is plugged back in you should feel/hear the fuel pump running all the time.

THIS IS ONLY A TEMPORARY FIX!!!!!!!

Did it myself out in the cold day before yesterday.
\Otherwise look at the other things already mentioned.

--------------------

Devia

Thanks, Sid! We will have to try that, if everything else checks out fine.

I at least fixed my boyfriend's car again - I need a new Japanese import mechanic, made the same mistake twice - he didn't clamp the hoses down tight enough! This time, my boyfriend freaked when he saw steam coming out from under the hood, and found the top off the radiator resevoir. So this morning I opened it up, and just tightened the front clamp that went around the radiator, since it looked like a consistent spray pattern on both sides; put a load on the engine, and nothing!

So, one running car, and one to go. At least I don't mind working on cars, or I'd be screaming up and down the street, "Demons, Demons I tell you! They and the Gremlins have overtaken my car!", but I won't.

Thanks to you all, I am sure we will overcome this obstacle, and go on from here.

- Julie

Manning

So if something is leaking, it has to be dripping, right? The "other" common paper trick is to put clean cardboard under your car and look for the drips a little while later. You can then get an idea where something is leaking in relation to where the cardboard had been.

If your only getting 10 to the gallon and there isn't gas all over the ground then it has to be blowing out the tailpipe. I have to go back to injectors, like one is fried and leaking something fierce. If that is the case you will indeed smell gas very clearly. I would try Jay's trick of pulling the rail (carefully so you don't pop an injector out of the rail itself) or my screwdriver stethoscope trick to see if you hear which one is shot.

Also, what does your oil look like right now? Is it really thinned out and stinking of petrol? IF you have an injector leaking then gas is washing down that cylinder wall and getting into your sump.

If by the way you are blowing that much gas out the exhaust most likely your catalytic converter is now garbage.

I frankly hope it is a leaking hose as that will be worlds cheaper to fix. While I don't like the idea of doing this, at least you could pull the old injector hose and hose clamps trick for a while to get the car on the road. Don't forget you have a few rubber hoses back at the fuel pump (may not be the fuel pump leaking after all) that usually are neglected and will crack and leak (mine did). Actually they aren't very well protected, so something could jump off the road surface and damage them. The one from the tank to the pump is shaped and different sizes on either end, so a hunk of hose from the auto parts store won't cut it here.

Devia

I just put that cat on Friday, so I definitely hope it isn't toast!

I'm going to check it out today, visually first, and checking oil, etc.

- Julie

Manning

If the cat is that new you may luck out.

Running very rich tends to clog the catalyst matrix which does a few things. First, it cuts down on exhaust flow. Since the flow is impeded the temp will get really high and start melting the matrix down. That obviously leads to the infamous blown catalytic converter. I had some pictures of a blown out catalytic converter in a post last year (which is long gone since the search re-index and the demise of the original image upload site). It is kind of wild looking. Actually I still have some of the melted matrix in my garage and the cat is in my basement.

I really wish you the best of luck. I think most of us know the agony of chasing down repairs and malfunctions only to have something else go wrong later, whether related to the first malfuntion or not.

Devia

When we looked at the ceramic pieces in the old cat, it was melted...and clogged.

- Julie