Fuel Vapor Cannister

I would like to know that too. It might have something to do with why my garage smells like fuel.

I have a 64 MGB I put a V6 in. It smelled up the garage until I put a vapor canister in. I bought one off rock auto and took the charcoal out to make one from scratch. Mine is not plumbed back to the carb but the smell in the garage is gone.

That looks like a good option especially with the high ethanol content and instability of modern fuel which causes it to go off so quickly and smell really awful.

It looks like you can take the lid off the cannister, but who knows what I'll find inside. I won't be surprised if I find a squirrel's nest in there. But once I get the car running again I'll see if original stuff still works... If not I'll take it apart and try replacing the charcoal and see what happens then.

MX144, I suggest you try to hook it up and see if it works. There should be no reason not to try and I think you have a very fair chance to succeed. You can read the Thread I linked to, but be careful to read it all as some wrong ways of hooking the Vapor Canister up is mentioned. The correct way is to route a Hose from the Tank Vent to the Canister and then a Hose to "ventilate" the Canister either to the Air Filter or to the Atmosphere. Be careful not to hook up the Canister to Manifold or Carburetor Vacuum as some suggested. This will create vacuum in your Tank which is very undesirable!

Jan


Check this Thread page 2

Where do you get charcoal? Kingsford? :-))

I bought a canister off rock auto and cut it open.

Unless local law requires it, I'd suggest getting rid of it. If not, make sure you hook it up as my fellow Dane goodroc says

It is nice my garage no longer smells like gas.

pet stores sell activated charcoal for fish aquarium filters

I think it was a vapor canister from a Toyota Supra was what I used. I mounted it behind the wheel tub splash shield next to the gas tank. It was the smallest one I could find. It stops my garage from smelling, I looped the vent hose from canister as high as I could.

I have no cannister and no fuel smell in garage...

I am sure the smart people who designed the Pantera had safety in mind when they chose to ventilate the Tank via the Vapor Canister. That Fuel Tank is exposed to so much heat and it must be expected to exhaust large amounts of Vapor?

I would not want to have those Vapors in my Engine compartment uncontrolled so I hooked it up as DeTomaso intended.

We Earthlings should not change what DeTomaso created!

Goodroc,

Thanks. That makes sense. The 3/4 inch hose looks massive. I routed it to the front of the air cleaner, but it looks a bit out of place. I made a plate to hold it down but I think I'm going to reroute it to the back of the air cleaner once I work out where all the rest of the wires and hoses go.

Here is the NOS canister I have in my car. The stock Pantera uses the same part as some Ford trucks of the time so they are available from the Ford vendors. I too had a fuel smell in my garage. I changed all hoses, the filter, and the canister just to be sure. No more fuel smell

Dear Inquisitive Minds,


Pertinent to this discussion,is my experience with my two late Pantera L cars. In the last two years, I pulled the drivetrain and pulled the gas tank from one, which was leaking. While it was out, I modified the tank for a larger AN 8 fuel line that entered the tank through the opening for the vent tube, which is plumbed to the charcoal cannister. After the vent fitting was removed, I inspected it and found that the vent tube was completely blocked at the entry end from the tank into the fitting. It was blocked as it was cast. Externally, it looked perfectly normal and internally, it was completely blocked and non-functional.

Months later I did the same modification to the other Pantera's gas tank. It had the same foundry, factory defect and a completely non-functional vent fitting.

So, from my experience, if you want to see if you have a vent fitting that actually sends gasoline vapor to the charcoal cannister, then pull the tube off and try to slip a wire into the vent nipple tube fitting. You should be able to tell soon quickly, if your vent is blocked from the foundry or if it does work as designed.

FWIW.

Warmest regards, Chuck Engles

The laws in the US regarding automotive air pollution included "evaporative emissions". The government test involved locking-up the car in an air tight room of a certain size, at a certain temperature, for a certain amount of time, and afterwards measuring the amount of hydrocarbons that had collected in that room.

In order to pass the test the evaporative emissions from the fuel tank (and in later years the carburetor fuel bowls too) had to be collected, to prevent them from entering the air space of the test room. The charcoal canister made this possible, it is where the fuel vapors could be collected during the test period. Once the engine was started fresh air flowed through the charcoal canister, induced by its connection to the air cleaner. The evaporative emissions collected in the canister should have been pulled from the canister and inhaled by the engine. That is how the design was intended to perform. It was (and is) purely an emissions issue, not a safety issue.

Whether or not you utilize the charcoal canister, I hope your De Tomaso's fuel tank vent will be equipped with one of those "check valves" that prevents liquid fuel from flowing out the vent if the car should ever become upside-down. That would cover the safety issue.

When I was a bachelor I kept motorcycles stored in my den, started them up in the house, and drove them around the living room. Fuel vapors? Never noticed them.

The charcoal canister can over time stop scrubbing the petroleum fums, it becomes saturated
over time but their are four solutions, #1.)heat the unit in a stove at 450* for about two hours this will purge all the impurities from the charcoal and it will work for another 5 to ten years, but it could blow up, destroying your home and burning it to the ground. #2.)Open the canister dump the old charcoal, go to your local tropical fish store by a 1/4 pound of charcoal, refill the unit, it is as good as new, ignore the counter guy's questions about the size of your aquarium. #3 Run a hose up above the tank with a filter on the end to a inauspicious place where you can't see it. #4.) don't top off your tank right before you put the car in the garage, premium 91 octane starts to go bad in about 72 hours. As a side note , charcoal is the scrubbing agent in submarines to re-breathing units for the Seals and U.D.T., BUT the only time I ever noticed the smell was when my now X wife said, whats that smell??????, no wife no smell.That would make it 5 options.

quote:

That is how the design was intended to perform. It was (and is) purely an emissions issue, not a safety issue.

George, If it was to prevent the emission of Fuel Vapors I would consider that to take care of a safety issue.

Of course it is also a comfort issue as having your Garage smell of Fuel is uncomfortable, but after all I still consider it an unnecessary hazard to have Fuel Vapors in the Engine Compartment. Especially when the Engine is running.

Jan

quote:

Originally posted by sjdennis:
Here is the NOS canister I have in my car. The stock Pantera uses the same part as some Ford trucks of the time so they are available from the Ford vendors. I too had a fuel smell in my garage. I changed all hoses, the filter, and the canister just to be sure. No more fuel smell

Dennis Can you post some more pictures of routing of the hoses etc