Flooding issue
 

Very strange problem and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. Once in a great while my car floods on start up. Then I have to put the peddle to the floor and let it crank. When it starts, a big cloud of white smoke and it runs rough until I clear it out. Strange because it only does this after it's been sitting a few days and sometimes not for months. It's been running fine all summer but did it the other day.

Leaking Injectors -
 

Hey Harborman - It sounds like you may have a couple of (intermittent ?) fuel injectors that leak or bleed off when you're parked. To start off - you might install a pressure gauge in the right hand fuel rail to test your static pressure.

It's kind of a pain but if you pull the injectors with their rails up out of their sockets as a unit - then jumper across the fuel relay plug to run the fuel pump and pressurize the fuel lines - you can visually identify which ones are leaking. Don't forget to look at the cold start injector as well for any seepage.

One other suggestion - You can also static test your injectors individually using a "Home Made" tester. You will need a New Long Neck Rubber Tire Valve and a pressurized Can of Fuel Injector Cleaner with a red nozzle straw attached. Remove the plastic cap from the air valve and drill a tiny hole in the cap slightly smaller in diameter than the red nozzle straw of the fuel injector spray can. Insert one end of the red straw through the plastic cap and the other end of the straw into the fuel injector cleaner top spray nozzle. Next remove/unscrew the internal core of the Air Valve. Then pull all the injectors from the fuel rails and remove their "O" rings.

To begin the test push the lower end of the tire air valve over the input side of the injector. A little grease helps. Screw the cap onto the air valve with one end of the red straw inserted through the cap and the other end pushed into the top of the fuel injector cleaner. Finally spray the pressurized can of injector cleaner and look for any seepage on the output end of the injector.

If the injectors need a cleaning - The optional step is to use a cheap-o injector pulser to rapidly fire the injector coil as you spray the injector cleaner through the injector until the injector output end spray pattern is conical. Don't try to trigger the injector using a pair of leads and 12v battery or you'll damage the internal injector coil. The impedance of the coil requires power to be applied only in milli-second bursts.

This is naturally a "No Smoking or Open Flame Allowed" test :)

Good Luck, Michael

JK, Thanks for all that information. You could be right. It does it so infrequently. I wonder if putting a few bottles of Techron in the tank might help first.

did you check the vacuum lines for the dampers leaking?
pull the line off and smell it for fuel .
if its wet, then it would be a good idea to replace both dampers and the fuel pressure regulator

Mrmerlin, yes I had done that last year and found no leaks. But maybe I will have to look at it again. I left the car outside last night, got down to 45, car started right up. It does it so infrequently is what bothers me. Car now has 74K original miles on it. I still have the original plug wires. I did replace all the fuel lines last year. I replaced the fuel filter and check valve as well. Maybe one of those injectors does stick allowing it to flood out. This problem occurs maybe once or twice a year, usually after it sits in my garage a few days, but not always.