But at less than 3/4, nothing, no fumes no smells.
A quick look around and no gas leaking that I could see - is this a vent hose problem of some sort? Looks like a small vent hose runs back around behind the seat, but I haven't chased it any further since yesterday.
The good news is, on a mountain road, this thing is fabulous.
What year? You may need to pop the rear shelf panel off and check the condition of the hoses, tightness of the hose clamps on the top of the fuel tank.
Click and scroll down:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/miata-wintercrosser/97775/page4/
This seems to be a surprisingly common issue.
It's a 2000.
When I looked back there, I didn't notice any fuel residue, but I'll look again.
It also seemed to smell a little more on the passenger side (well, that or I'm crazy, or had sniffed to much in gas fumes by that point); I was trying to chase down those hoses, but as I was up on the mountain at the time, I had no tools with which to pop that back access panel.
The issue was only present for about the last 5 minutes or so before shutting down. I thought it was the car in front of me, but when they pulled off and I went about my merry way, I realized it was me. It also happened in one of the tighter, twistier sections of the road.
About 40 min later, I fired up the car and pulled out. When I fired the car up to drive off, the smell was largely gone. Took it easy down through the section I just came through, no issues. Through another tight section much further down, tried to recreate the issue, nothing doing.
Fuel level was significantly less than 3/4 tank at that point.
Ok, updates on this issue.
I had the vapor smell at half tank a day or two ago, no twisty driving what so ever. Pretty strong gas fume odor. It was pretty warm that day, about 93 or so (oh, and still had the top down. 93 is still ok top down weather...).
Popped the access panel, all hoses look good, no cracks, everything tight, no residue or signs of fuel leakage. I do not have Woody's issues of any gas pooling or weeping and mixing with dust off the filler neck area and settling for a nice "permanent" gas smell.
However, in my post above, I referenced it seemed stronger on the passenger side; with the access panel off, I now see the preponderance of all the vent hoses are on that side of the car - but they all appear tight, the hoses look in good condition with no cracks or any of that.
Underside of the car I notice what appears to be the return line that goes in to what looks like a "charcoal canister" that all the vent hoses are hooked to, and if I were to get excess fuel to that maybe that's my issue? I have no idea.
Oh great and gracious Mr. Tanner - you wouldn't have some insight in to this issue, would you?
Help.
Did you see the update that I posted on my fuel odor thread a couple of days ago? I ended up replacing the main hose.
Woody, I did, but you also had some fuel pooling there, didn't you?
In reply to OldGray320i:
Not much, just a little grit. You may have some version of my corrosion problem on one of the smaller vent hoses.
Yeah, everything so far is just loose dust, wipes away really easy. I'll pull one of those off to see what they look like.
What I thought was a full tank problem also happened at half a tank or less (on a nice warm day), and that smell was stronger by the vent hoses on the passenger side. I'll pull one of those off to take a look, too.
Checked a couple hoses, everything is really clean. Replaced the little vent hose for grins and giggles, if it changes anything by a little, then I'll consider the filler hose too....
It took me a long time to track down a similar issue. Turns out that the solid neck was leaking from the area where the bracket attaches. A lump of that putty to fix gas tanks worked wonders.
I've heard that the factory "charcoal canister" lines can rot or something, and cause a gasoline smell in the cabin. Most people just delete the entire system because its really not necessary. Maybe you could give it a quick inspection?
It sounds like you need to smoke test the system to find the leak.
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