For as long as I have had this car, it's always smelled of raw gas. I checked eveything from the tank filler cap to the fuel rail but couldn't find a thing. Last night I was testing the fuel pressure regulator trying to get to the bottom of a persistent lean code. Violla!!, I discovered that when I pinched the fuel return line on the back of the regulator foaming fuel bubbles appeared that promptly evaporated when they reached the hot intake manifold.

I could see that fuel line deteriorated from age and over clamping and was letting fuel effervese under the hood thus causing the odor.

Apparently, some previous owner had used too large of fuel line for the application and clamped the heck out of it. I actually used slighty undersized line and preheated it with a heat gun so it really fit tight like a vacume line. Now no more naseauting fuel smell.

The lesson learned is that when troubleshooting always first check to make sure that previous "half assed fixes" are not the root of the current problem.

 

Nice job, it is amazing what some people will do for a quick fix.

 

What a timely post! I have the same smell, and I'm going to see if this is my fix.

 

so u just got underneither the car and started pinching the hoses? it was that easy? i definatly want to look int othat for me

 

whoa whoa, what model cars are you all talking about?

 

The fuel presure regulator, a little cylinder attached to the fuel rail, sends excess fuel back to fuel tank. It is activated by the vacume line. At low rpm you have excess fuel delivered. The high vacume present at low rpm moves a diaphram that lets fuel flow back to the fuel tank. As vacume decreases the diaphram closes the fuel as more fuel is needed.

If your regulator is bad you will see fuel in the vacume line that goes back to the t. The car will smell like fuel and it will run really rich. The regulator gfoes bad because the diaphram inside tears and allows fuel to leak into the vacume line and not back to the tank.

My problem stemmed from a deteriorated fuel return line that allowed some fuel to leak out of the return line on the back of the regulator. When I squeezed the return line I noticed that fuel bubbles leaked out and dripped onto the hot intake manifold instantly vaporizing causing the fuel smell.