Hello folks, I don't mess around a whole lot on this end of the forum because well I don't own a newer truck like these, however my father does and I've noticed a strange problem that makes it next to impossible for me to use his truck unless the vents are off or I have both windows all the way down with it on. It smells like it has a fuel leak of some sort and in the cab of the truck it smells bad while driving and gets worse when sitting still, to me it smells like gas and when I open the hood on his truck after idling about 5 minutes or so I can smell it in there so i know its somewhere under the hood but for the life of me I can't see anywhere where its leaking or anything like that but I can smell it all darn day. His truck is an 05 F-150 with a 5.4 and I'd like to figure this out before it becomes a real big problem. I've worked with fuel injected cars and trucks before but I have little knowledge of the mod engines at all. And if anyone asks he is still driving it like that and I just wanna make sure it either is not gas or is just something simple I'm overlooking. Thanks in advance as always, Shadow.

 

It may be that he is simply overfilling the tank with fuel.

When we got our 2010, we filled the tank up. When it clicked off, kept on filling. The dealer told us that was NOT the way you do it.

ou fill it, and when the pump kicks off, you QUIT!!

THere's a charcoal canister in the system, that if you keep on filling, the fuel gets in the canister, and then it has to "dry out", before the smell goes away !!!!

I was to understand that if you keep getting it wet, it ruins it, and the only way to get rid of the odor is to replace the canister, and NOT overfill it again !!!!!!

If I'm wrong someone straighten me out. (But that is what the dealer told us).

 

That is an idea, I'll have to ask him if he is doing that and to just try not doing that the next few times he is at the pump. I would figure if that is the case it will evaporate away after some time and slowly just no longer smell.

 

On modern cars, you never want to top them off. It's bad for the fuel cap, and it's really bad for the evap canisters and a ton of other (expensive) emissions equipment.

 

Has he changed any plugs lately if so some may not be tight and cousing the fuel smell this is what some people have posted as to the fuel smell problem on this site.

 

My thoughts exactly, if not all the gunk got out from the spark plug wells it can make the plug feel tight (even fool a torque wrench) but not seat the plug all the way.

 

Sorry for the late response, yes he has had the plugs changed recently due to a misfire/ crappy gas mileage, he got a shop to do them after failing to do it himself (he should of listened to my advice before he ever started) and then had to take it back and get a few more pulled back out and replaced due to a defect that caused a misfire so bad i basically stopped the truck from accelerating at full throttle on me and sent me a flashing check engine light the rest of the ride home.

 

Usually the fuel odor is coming from loose or improperly torqued plugs.

 

I changed intake manifold and in the process removed the fuel rails. Got one o-ring cut on reinstall and had a drip of fuel that I did not see until started smelling it.

 

With this back-story, it seems almost certain that you still have a problem with the spark plugs being tight. If I had to guess, I'd say the plug threads in the heads will need to be repaired.

 

I sure hope thats not the case and its just some carbon built up around the threads tricking us, I'd hate to have to heli-coil the head or for that matter take it off of the truck and fix it the old fun and hard way.

 

Yeah, it ain't pretty and a lot can go wrong, but I bet the local Ford dealer has Heli-Coiled a few of them.

 

I would check to see if the injector oil rings are leaking or an injector.