Well despite praise for my V10 in another thread, I do have a slight issue I need to get fixed.


Over the last 2 months of so I've noticed a slight gas smell when I drive my truck, at first it smell like hot "stale" gas and nothing fresh and now it is a bit stronger and smells more like fresh gas evaporating on a hot engine, which makes me a bit nervous, especially with our high here yesterday being 115. (At least the A/C is still ice cold!)


I searched around in the engine bay for a bit when I got off of work with the engine still hot and didn't see anything obvious. I'm just wondering if there is a common place for there to be a gas leak with the V10. My fuel mileage is great (for a V10 on California gas), power is fine, and it isn't coming from the exhaust, so it's definitely leaking somewhere in the engine bay. I was assuming it was the connection behind the intake against the firewall, but couldn't see anything there.

 

Check to make sure your purge valve is working. The charcoal canister is probably loaded.

 

I never even considered that for some reason and it would explain why it smelled stale when it first started happening. It did resemble the smell of an old charcoal canister at first now that I think about it.


I just dealt with a bad canister about 2 years ago on a Nissan Hardbody, so I have some kind of an idea what to look for. Hopefully it's not as convoluted as the Nissan system.

 

I almost forgot about this issue since I kept the gas tank full most of the winter and it only smells at all when it's warm and the gas tank is getting low. Also been busy doing mods on the travel trailer the last few months.


Anyhow, any advice for troubleshooting EVAP issues on the V10? I have priced out all the parts (2 different solenoids and the canister), but don't want to just throw parts on it. I'm wondering what the most likely to have gone bad and if there are different symptoms between the vent solenoid, purge solenoid, or canister being bad. Unlike the Nissan, there is no check engine light or code pointing me in the right direction.