Hi, I've got a really strong smell of petrol. It's quite bad when starting and then it seems to go away, but when I park up after driving for a while with the engine off it is very strong. It's so bad that one shop employee called the police in fear that it was leaking petrol, and the MOT tester today spent 10 minutes looking for a leak before he would being testing.
I've stripped down the inlet manifold a couple of times and replaced all of the rubber seals. I thought the smell had gone after that, but my sense of smell is not very good and it obviously has not gone. There is no petrol leaking on to the floor. There are two "possible" causes but I don't see how they could cause such a strong smell:-
1) The fuel bleed valve on the fuel rail seemed to be leaking slightly - also there seems to be no pressure when I bleed it - also co-incides with bad starting from cold. However the bleed valve has a cap so it can't be leaking enough to cause such a strong smell.
2) The top left bolt of the inlet manifold flange is spinning and will not tighten. Given that there are quite a lot of bolts on the flange I didn't think that just one bolt would allow petrol to leak though, plus when the engine is running it would create a vaccuum sucking the petrol in.
Grateful for any suggestions
Btw, failed the MOT - indicator bulbs the wrong colur!??? It's all bog standard :-?
Author
Topic: Really strong petrol smell (Read 856 times)