On another note, @strantor, how are you making out with your issue.

Nothing to report. Still deleting codes. I keep finding dead mice and frogs near my vehicle. Maybe there is a feline cult in the area laying offerings at the feet of their GM deity, or maybe @Audioguru was right and it's emitting poison gas whose odor is on a wavelength that I can't detect. I guess we'll find out in few years when I either fix the issue or all the local mice and frogs are dead.

 

@strantor, on another note and an old kind of related thread of yours, how did your Dad make out with the transmission in the "flood" car?

 

@strantor, on another note and an old kind of related thread of yours, how did your Dad make out with the transmission in the "flood" car?

Both the cars I salvaged from Harvey are on the road.

The stepdad's '94 Celica runs like a top, no issues whatsoever. It did go through a period of post-flood rebellion, where all the parts that were going to fail, did. It was a fuel pump relay and couple of others I don't remember. And of course the ECU which was submerged.

The '07 ford focus we assumed would suffer catastrophic transmission failure, never did. It sat for a month with automatic transmission topped off to the vent plug with muddy water. I trailered it to a local tune/lube place and told them to flush the tranny twice. They said it was probably a waste of money but I gave it a shot anyway. Zero issues with that transmission to date, I think 15k+ miles since. But lots of other things have shat the proverbial bed. A/C compressor locked up. Power steering pump puked its guts into the rack/pinion, fuel pump PWM controller corroded to death, intermittent issues with the shifter position switch, think it had some brake issues, not sure. I gave/sold/traded that car to my brother for $450 and some labor. I didn't feel right selling it to anyone. It has no documented flod damage but I know what it is, and he knows what it is, and it was a fair deal.

 

Your EVAP system leaks. It cost you wasted fuel and it is polluting our air. It might even be a fire hazard.
Since you cannot afford to fix it then you should sell the car and ride a bus or a bicycle.

You should be happy to learn I have fixed the problem. Local wildlife is no longer threatened by my noxious fumes.

My 8y/o daughter and I have replaced the charcoal canister and tank vent valve. I suspect the vent valve went out first and that caused failure of the canister. It got progressively harder to fill the gas tank over the past 6 months. The tank would fill half way, gas pump would shut off, and I would have to restart. Then 1/3 fill and 2 mid-fill shutoffs. Then 4, 5, and so on. Then it would only fill for 5 seconds between shutoffs. Then it would trip almost instantly when squeezing the handle. It got to the point where just putting in $20 took 20 minutes. Sitting at the gas pump watching rush-hour traffic start to back up, when I had left work at a very precise time to avoid it, set me on a correction course. I still couldn't afford it but I deemed it worthy of using the credit card.

I think what was happening is the vent valve died a slow agonizing death. Got more and more sluggish until it seized completely. It wasn't opening fully when I turned the engine off (hence hard to fill) and wasn't shutting completely when I turned the engine on (hence the evap leak codes). When it finally failed completely it failed closed. And when it failed closed and I was having so much trouble filling it, I pumped a cumulative total of about a gallon of gas into the charcoal filter. If I'm right, then I could have just spent $75 on the valve instead of the added $175 on the canister by addressing the problem sooner. Lesson learned (again).



I strongly opine that Engineers should spend a few years working on things before they start designing them.

P.S. she's turning wrenches on my vehicle but I painted her nails LOL

 

I strongly opine that Engineers should spend a few years working on things before they start designing them.

Totally agree with that statement. And if you want a good example of it you should get a Colorado or Canyon. The people involved with those should be shot or worse.

 

I've been working on a tough problem too for the past few months. It's finally fixed. It initially started as a drivability problem with no codes. The shop was clueless, but found the air cleaner box not tight which was likely my fault.

I cleaned the MAF sensor which improved things a fair bit then I started to get misfires on every coil. I replaced a coil and it either went away or got worse. The one that got worse was a defective coil.

I replaced the fuel filter. Youtube videos said 5/8 and 11/16 flare nut wrenches. Reality said 5/8" and a 20 mm wrench. The 20 mm wrench is almost non-existant and very expensive. The new filter has a 19mm nut on it. the filter was on the vehicle 20 years and it's under the car within an arm;s reach. That was probably not necessary to replace.

I wanted to replace the coil for the #2 cylinder on Sunday, but we had what I thought was a break-in. I called the local LE and one said wind, the other was non-commital. The outer aluminum frame of the storm door was bent with chunks of the wood removed. What didn't make sense was the inner door was hard to close.

After LE left, I found a popped screw on the threshold of the inner door. When I tried to put the angled aluminum jam back between a rock and a hard place, it would not fit. There was not enough room for an index card. Ah Ha! Expansion. Temps between 28 and 60F and rain as well. Until I had the experience and could touch the "crime scene", I didn't know it was expansion.

I finally had a consistant #6 cylinder miss. It was the wires.

The plug wires, a sensor and it's wiring were replaced "professionally" about 3 years ago. The plug wires were tightly ty-wrapped together and the outer insulation was melted.



I cut 4mm off the aluminum. The damage is all hidden and all of the chunks of wood are put back. It's not wood filled or painted yet.