Smelly old thing...

[sjm]

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone on here has experienced what I'm gogin through now, and how they dealt with it: my 356A gets parked up in the garage each evening, but the garage is joined to the house, so basically I end up with a smell of petrol in the utility room, and also through to the kitchen (not a nice place to have a smell of petrol!)

When it's hot it seems even worse, and you can actually smell it pretty much all over the house. I'm getting prices today to have double glazed doors from garage-to-utility room, and utility room-to-garage in an attempt to stop the smell, but really need to try everything to stop this smell!

Any ideas will be very welcome!

Many thanks

[912uk]

have you checked for leaks or even the carbs for any leaks even inside the carbs. Mine don't smell. They smell of old car which is price less

[Helen]

umm thats not nice. sounds like you might need some sort of venterlation in the garage to let the fumes out.

but, i'd be worried about why the smell is so strong.........is the car leaking petrol

i'm pretty sure my cars don't smell of petrol, although my garage is away from the house, i'm pretty sure my neighbours would complain if they did.

[sjm]

Carbs is a good place to start I guess - they were re-built just before I took collection of the car, but I also wonder if the mixture is running a bit rich? I guess that would add to the smell. I'm booking it in for some work over Autumn, but want something quick and easy to fix the smell for now. May even try just leaving a very heavy blanket over the car as well, just to 'damp' it down a bit.

No leaks on the garage floor at all (which I was very surprised about for a 49 yr old car!)

[hot66]

if you can smell petrol whilst the car is sat in the garage ( assuming the smell doesn't go away after a day or so ) tehn it means petrol is exposed to the atmosphere so it will be nothing to do with running rich.

I'd check to see what breather arrangement you have on the fuel tank 1st. Then follow the fuel pipe from the tank to the carbs checking for leaks / damp areas / smells . Then check around the carbs for leaks.

Nearly every old VW I have had needed new fuel pipes as the old ones had gone hard & brittle and had begun to leak. I have also changes all the fuel pipes in the engine bay of my 2.4S for the same reason

[Derek]

Get a fire extinguisher if you don't have one. Do it today

[sjm]

Hot66 - many thanks. I had wondered about fuel pipes as well. The car has come in from California so I'm guessing the hot/ dry weather has made any rubbers/ pipes very brittle and prone to leaking smells. I'm going to take this as my first course of action - it won't hurt to replace them all anyway. Thanks for advice. (also, off topic, but what is the G-Wagen like?)

Derek - thanks also. I do keep one in the utility room as it happens - may start carrying it with me until fuel pipes are replaced!

[58A - 71E]

Had the same problem with mine, and as described the main issue was that the petrol was open to the air via a breather pipe from the top of the tank (exited straight out through the petrol tank floor). So I renewed the breather pipe with some fresh rubber, put a filter in line with a little 'pig tail' of copper tube all tucked behind the tank and no more smell.

James

[hot66]

.. (also, off topic, but what is the G-Wagen like?)

The G-wagen is my households favorite car My daughters love it as they can see out so well and my wife loves it for pootling out into the dales. I prefer driving it to my Audi. Only problem is it is a bit thirsty ( weighs over 2 tonnes with a 3.0 straight 6 petrol ) . I use it for work stuff. Hopefully depreciation proof & more relaible than a defender or an early Range Rover.

Bad photo, but here it is at work yesterday

[sjm]

James - thanks. Someone here pointed me to Paul @ PRS356 - he suggested exactly what you and Hot66 have said, so it's off to see him next week for a (hopefully) quick fix! May have to see what sports exhausts he has in stock while I'm there....

Hot66 - my father-in-law had one and loved it. I've got a current Range Rover V8, which is pretty juicy itself (about 14mpg round town) but I'm going to be selling it in a couple of months as I want to free up some of the money to do some mods on the 356, but I'll still need something similar to relace it for bombing round town. I'm thinking a G-Wagen could be the business.... Has it been reliable?

[hot66]

mine has a fair few miles on it ( 163K) but is reliable. I have a couple of niggling jobs I've had to do ... but you expect that on a 16 year old 163K millage car

[Hendrik Moulds]

Derek's right.
Everyone should carry a fire extinguisher in the car with them all the time. You never know when you are going to have problems.
In fact I carry two - does that make me paranoid?