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  • Petrol pong?

    Occasionally, I get a petrol smell inside my Hunter, whether the soft-top is on or off. This can occur when I drop the car into a lower gear going downhill, foot off accelerator, and let the engine/gearbox hold the car back from racing down the hill. Occasionally the smell might occur when braking to a junction.

    There are no signs of petrol anywhere. The problem can happen when the tank is only half-ful, ruling out leaks from the tank or nearby plumbing.

    The only thing I can think of is maybe it has something to do with the siting of the air-filter. It is at the front of the engine, at rocker-box level. Is it possible that petrol fumes emerge from the filter when the engine is on the over-run, and then the smell could easily percolate through to the car interior?

    Any thoughts would be appreciated.
    Cheers
    Mike

  • #2
    Re: Petrol pong?

    It could be the smell of unburnt fuel from the exhaust. When the Cabrio was first introduced I remember a member having problems with the exhaust fumes dragging back into the car. He had to reposition the exit point at the rear of the car.
    Ben Caswell probably not the last word on anything here!!

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    • #3
      Re: Petrol pong?

      My exhausts was positioned on the right side at the rear and no petrol/fumes smell. Repositioned the exhausts more in the centre at the rear and got a petrol/fumes smell above about 30mph, so extended by 2inches and a lot better. Also had a petrol leak at the fuel tank sender as the sealing rubber had split. Lees removed his rear exhaust pipe tail bends on his Cabrio V8 and he comented he got fumes also.

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      • #4
        Re: Petrol pong?

        My tail-pipe exits just behind the offside rear wheel at about a 45 degree angle. The smell is obvious to both driver & passenger, and as I said before mostly when the engine is on the overun. I don't discount the exhaust theory, but it is strange how the fumes are quickly finding their way forward into the car. I don't know whether I can modify the pipework to exit somewhere else, or perhaps fit a deflector.

        When I had a Robin Hood (poor man's Caterham/Seven) the exhaust outlet came just below my right elbow, and the fumes only noticed when stationery.

        My village garage did mention that some of the rubber petrol pipework could do with being replaced, which I plan to do in the near future. However, the guy did not suggest that anything was leaking.


        Cheers
        Mike

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        • #5
          Re: Petrol pong?

          Hi Mike. The original Marlin build air intake for the Rover V8 3.9i in my Hunter was a fabricated alloy box under the rear N/S bonnet louvres. As it drew air straight down into the airflow meter it also sucked in rain causing a couple of "breakdown" incidents. See my rich running articles in Pitstop and the forum about this. I used to notice a fuel smell when switching off but with injection it was not as bad as you'd get with a carb setup. I now have a K&N filter in a plastic "box / rain cover" with cold air ducted from the "over the rad" space and no further smells noticed. When Mark at Marlin saw my extra Powerflow supplied silencers and rear exh setup he commented that the original 45deg tailpipes were fitted to eliminate exh fumes suck back into the cars! However I haven't had any problem with this with my revised setup where the talpipes end at the rear bumper line. Search MOC forum for my article and photos of this setup. Another thought. You may want to check your fuel filler / vent / breather pipework as any faults there WILL give you a lot of smells in the N/S R wheel arch area. Hope all this helps. Peter.

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