Fuel smell from under plenum 94Q

[ericthered]

I am smelling fuel from under my plenum after running a while. After leaving the car off for a few days, there is absolutely no smell. I left the ignition turned on for about 30 minutes before starting the car just to see if static fuel pressure might cause the smell. So far, no, but the engine is also cold so fuel does not evaporate so easily.

It has been a long time since I pulled the plenum on a Q (this is my third),those hoses were all changed a while ago, and only easy-replace fule injectors have gone bad . Basically I can't remember where the fuel hoses are to attempt to check them individually. I did a search and at least found some great pictures of what is down there.
post6350238.html?hilit=fuel%20leak%20un ... m#p6350238
The other picture I have is page 6 of the EM FSM
http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Q45/1994_Q45/em.pdf

The hose across the front and at the right side of the front looks good.
The smell seems stronger in the back right (driver's side near firewall).

What else to check?
Fuel injector seals? no visual indications without during surgery.
Not sure where the fuel pressure regulator lives. Is that on the end of the fuel rail at the back right?

What I don't want to do is pull the plenum and then not find out where the leak is. And I am not ready to do a full under-plenum hose replacement.

[ericthered]

Ah ha! I found the hose... towards the back passenger side under injector #8 and the plenum. It is the hose that is harder to see, of course. Now to see how lazy I can be about replacing it, or am I once again going to find out that all the annoyance associated with figuring out how to leave the plenum in place is more work than removing the plenum.

[SanCarlosQ45]

It could be the return line from the pressure regulator, its hard to tell because both the supply and return line are close in that area. Both are pain in the a** with the engine out of the car let alone on because you really have to remove the fuel rails. Those back lines are so short with a huge amount of overlap on the hard lines, so you kind of have to force the rail down onto the fuel line. I'll see if I have a picture from when I removed the engine.

[ericthered]

SanCarlos,
It is the innermost of the two lines, the one you need a mirror to see.
I pulled off the IAC and thought maybe I could get this off, at least one of the screws is "accessible".
But will I really need to loosen the fuel rails to get this replaced. Ugh.
In that case I should just bite the bullet and pull the plenum.

[SanCarlosQ45]

So its the one on the left you think? The one on the right is impossible without lifting up the fuel rails. The one on the left, which is the longer one, you might not have to lift the fuel rail but I think your definitely going to have to remove the plenum.

[ericthered]

SanCarlos,

Awesome picture, thank you!
The one visible on he right side of the picture looks OK. And that is the one I thought would be easier to replace.

The tube you can see connecting to the fuel rail on the left (picture view)/drivers side ends is probably it... I can just see the other end is leaking. That end is hidden in your picture by the plugged radiator hose.

Thinking about this, why is your engine not in your car? Or is it back in?

BTW: don't we live really near each other? I sent you a PM.

Eric

[SanCarlosQ45]

I needed to replace the transmission, so I went ahead and replaced the engine with a JDM engine over the summer. Heres what went in:



Put in a 91' trans with 55k miles. Got it from a wrecking yard down in south san jose.

[SanCarlosQ45]

Hey Eric, I tried sending you a message a while back, but I didnt realize you have private messages disabled. I wasnt avoiding your message, it just didnt send. Enable PMs.

[ericthered]

I have a problem putting this back together now that I replaced the two fuel lines under plenum, I don't know where the fuel supply hose (the one from the fuel filter) connects. It is one of the two hoses on the passenger side of the engine to the "sub-fuel tube" which is actually a pair of tubes shown just "above" the oil filler cap in this picture:


Can someone tell me whether the filter connects to the more forward of the two fuel tubes, or the one closer to the firewall? Thanks!

For reference, after pulling the plenum I had to remove the "sub-fuel tube" completely so attach the two new hoses, tighten clamps, and then thread the tubes back into place so that the far ends of the new hoses were pushed on to their respective connections. I used "SAE standard" 5/16" fuel injector hose. The phillips head screws on the factory clamps are annoying, but I re-used them.

[SanCarlosQ45]

You have it right in the picture, it connects to the line closest to the front of the engine, the return has the longer metal tube coming out.



Was it hard getting the lines out? I guess it was easier to just lift the rails when the engine was out of the car

[ericthered]

Cool, thanks, I have almost everything else done now.