I've tried almost everything to try to get my car running again but I can't seem to find any answers. As my last resort I'm attempting to retrace what I did before my car died on me.. I went to the gas station and filled up my car with 1 gallon of 93 octane fuel. Now the pump that I used had two nozzles.. one of unleaded and one for diesel. The nozzle was green for unleaded and black for diesel so I used the green pump which I remember specifically. Now is there any chance that they switched the pump or had the wrong fuel in the wrong tank? Reason I ask is i think it could be possible that there is diesel fuel in my car... it wont start hardly and if it does it sounds like the motor is under water and sometimes it dies and I heard this loud noise of the intake sucking for air as it dies. When I can rev i see black **** comming out the back of the exhaust..and its mixed with water i think cuz its some sort of wet substance as well. So could you tell me what I would be experiencing if this actually did happen? Thanks.

 

bump

 

I really dont know what the symptoms would be since i've never seen that, but if you think thats what happened, then just drain the gas tank and put new gas in there

 

Yes, what mmuller said. on the back of your gas tank under the car, there is a bolt, you can drain all the gas and then put fresh gas in your car.

EVERY GAS STATION:
Green handle = Diesel
Black handle (or another color but NEVER green) = pump gas unleaded

 

Diesel pump wont fit in standard gas filler neck.

Your car would kinda run, but REALLY smoky.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AMS MIKE &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

EVERY GAS STATION:
Green handle = Diesel
Black handle (or another color but NEVER green) = pump gas unleaded</TD></TR></TABLE>
Every gas station I've been to in america has had diesel as the green pump. Just like everyone else is recommending drain your tank and fill it back up.

When you put the plug back on make sure it's tight or it will leak

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AMS MIKE &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yes, what mmuller said. on the back of your gas tank under the car, there is a bolt, you can drain all the gas and then put fresh gas in your car.

EVERY GAS STATION:
Green handle = Diesel
Black handle (or another color but NEVER green) = pump gas unleaded</TD></TR></TABLE>

Is this a california thing? Seriously cuz I've seen green handles for gas pumps lots of places in Va. Also I went back to the gas station where I got the fuel... its a BP gas station and even the pumps that DID NOT have two hoses (one for diesel and one for gas) the handles were green as well. I KNOW i pumped with the green handle the day my car died but I can't help to wonder if somehow they put the diesel in the wrong tank at the gas station?

I was asking you guys if you knew the symptoms because right now my car can barely idle and if I try to put any load on it it just dies... furthermore there is black **** shooting out of my exhaust when I rev it from idle.. a lot of smoke too.. so i'm either running super rich or maybe there is disel? i dunno help me out in anyway you can please i'm running out of ideas

 

I say do a compression test. I think it could be your headgasket. Hell its worth a try. I know on my old motor i had a headgasket go bad kinda slow. It Started not runnig good then blew black smoke and finnally just wouldn't move at all. I pulled the Raditor cap and it was full of oil. Do a compression test just to be on the safe side its even easier than trying to drian the gas tank.

 

Diesel fuel relies on the heat of compressed air and higher CRs to combust as opposed to regular fuel which uses a spark to ignite the mixture. So diesel fuel in a regular gas engine is probably not very good. If you do have diesel fuel in your engine, i'd get it out asap. Be careful when draining it out, any spark could result in a fire or worse. I'd have a shop do it if possible.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MENACE &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I say do a compression test. I think it could be your headgasket. Hell its worth a try. I know on my old motor i had a headgasket go bad kinda slow. It Started not runnig good then blew black smoke and finnally just wouldn't move at all. I pulled the Raditor cap and it was full of oil. Do a compression test just to be on the safe side its even easier than trying to drian the gas tank.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I did a compression test a week ago and numbers came out 215 215 200 235
Those numbers seem about right so I doubt its head gasket... also I checked radiator and no sign of oil at all.. none in resevoir...
The car just feels like its under water.. when you rev you can hear the intake trying to gasp for air or something.. just can't understand this one.
I'll try the compression test again

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ingrate &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Diesel fuel relies on the heat of compressed air and higher CRs to combust as opposed to regular fuel which uses a spark to ignite the mixture. So diesel fuel in a regular gas engine is probably not very good. If you do have diesel fuel in your engine, i'd get it out asap. Be careful when draining it out, any spark could result in a fire or worse. I'd have a shop do it if possible. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah I only put 1 gallon in my tank.. i am 100% sure i used the right nozzle.. but who knows.. I'll drain the fuel tank and then fill it with some regular gas to see if that really is the problem... could I have done damage to the motor?

 

technically so if yer tank is nearly empty couldn't you just fill it up with super unleaded and it will dillute the diesel enough to run.. throw some octane booster in there too.. maybe some zylene you can get at lowes..

 

Well I'm hoping that it ISN'T diesel in there.. I'm just outta ideas so that is something that I wanna check out.. I'm gonna see if I can drain out instead of diluting.. a lil diesel may not hurt but why take that chance..

 

Diesel has an almost nonexistant volatility, so it won't vaporize. Car will be hard to start, have no pep, smoke blue, if you do get it running will have quite a propensity to knock.

Diesel smells, you should notice the odor of oil.

If in doubt, drain the tank and refill will fresh fuel.

My neighbor was filling up at "the companie's" gas pump with his personal car about 30 years ago, the fuel theft got so bad they deliberately put diesel in the gas pump overnight, then looked for the smokers leaving the lot... He got nailed... as he should. His station wagon had all the symptoms above.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BigMoose &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Diesel has an almost nonexistant volatility, so it won't vaporize. Car will be hard to start, have no pep, smoke blue, if you do get it running will have quite a propensity to knock.

Diesel smells, you should notice the odor of oil.

If in doubt, drain the tank and refill will fresh fuel.

My neighbor was filling up at "the companie's" gas pump with his personal car about 30 years ago, the fuel theft got so bad they deliberately put diesel in the gas pump overnight, then looked for the smokers leaving the lot... He got nailed... as he should. His station wagon had all the symptoms above.</TD></TR></TABLE>

My symptoms are pretty similar but not quite... I dont see blue smoke I see black smoke and black water droplets shoot out the tail pipe when I rev the motor... I can smell a lot of gas but not oil..
Once I start the car up it idles but if I even blip the trottle a lil it will die right away... when i do rev it sometimes sounds like I'm under water and its bogging but sometimes I can rev and it sounds fine.. its pretty volitile... i wish someone went through this in the past so I can read off that but I'm so clueless right now that I'm doubting my myself for putting the wrong type of fuel in my car.. i'm pretty much grabing at anything

 

do me a favor, just for giggles, take your air filter off and try to start the car..

did you already tried that?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GZERO &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">do me a favor, just for giggles, take your air filter off and try to start the car..

did you already tried that?</TD></TR></TABLE>

No I haven't actually..I'll do it tommrow in the morning though.. thanks for that idea.

If I trace back my steps before she died on me...

-I went to the BP gas station to put in 1 gallon of 93 octane.

-Took my car home and adjusted the fpr to lean it out some (to see why my car was blowing black smoke) I've actually leaned out my fpr more than this to the point where the car wouldnt even make it out the driveway but this time it did so I didn't think I leaned it TOO much.

-Took it for a test run.. ripped through first and second and started to slow down, as I slowed down I reved it up to 8k three times in a row to see if black smoke would still spit through the tail pipe (it did) but on the third rev it didn't rev like it did normally, it sounded like either there wasn't enough fuel.. The motor just bogged almost liked the motor was under water.

-The car stalled out so I pulled her over to the side of the road.

-I tried to start the car again and it would start on occasion but would stall out pretty quickly when I reved it up a bit. (wouldn't rev past 2k)

-Had the car towed to my house and I tried to start her up again but absolutely nothing.. , it would crank and crank but wouldn't start..finally the battery died from trying to start it so much.

-The next day I worked on it again. I thought maybe my injectors were clogged? I cleaned them out real good the screens and all with brake cleaner.. Put them back in and it started again! BUT had a pretty rough idle and whenever I blipped the throttle it sounded like it was underwater again but only at under 2k rpm... above that it reved like it should just perfect..

-Thought all was fine until I tried to drive it again.. it would still kind of hessitate and bog below 2k rpm but then it would be ok.. took two laps around my block but died again on the second lap and then wouldn't start.. pretty much like when it died originally the day before.

So it was running OK but not perfect after I cleaned injectors.. drove it a lil bit more and then died again.. thats why I was thinking maybe I had put in diesel? Its highly unlikely but like I said I ran out of ideas..

Does anyone think my problem could be electrical? Maybe a bad distributor?
There were three hints that my car provided me when it died and I opened up the hood the orignal day that it died on me..

1)When I checked, one of the spark plug wires was disconnected from the distributor. Not sure how that happend but I'm sure driving with only three spark plugs firing could cause my symptoms. I put it back in but still had same problem though so that leads me to believe that this wasn't an issue.. but why was it unplugged?

2) When I kept trying to crank the motor to start her up again I saw a little bit of smoke from the engine bay.. then I noticed the smoke was actually comming from the intake! Not a whole lot but there was some for sure.

3) My spark plugs have always been pretty decent looking.. not too white but definitely not black. After I got the car towed home I took the plugs out and all four were very black.. maybe from richness?

I know this is a lot to take in but I want to be as specific as possible since its hard to diagnose anything when you're not actually here in my garage.

If anyone could give me some clues as to what could be wrong I'd really appreciate it. I miss driving it

 

just drain it and put in new gas. yes all dielel handles are green. someone was prolly just messing around and hung the diesel handle on the gas and vise versa.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by StockEG9 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


Does anyone think my problem could be electrical? Maybe a bad distributor?
There were three hints that my car provided me when it died and I opened up the hood the orignal day that it died on me..

</TD></TR></TABLE>

im starting to think thats what it is, when my dizzy went bad i kinda had the same symptoms... sometimes they go out in a funky way...
just to see swap it with a known working one

 

Sounds like you've got a bad johnson rod...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDMDA9 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Sounds like you've got a bad johnson rod...</TD></TR></TABLE>

whats that?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 88crex &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just drain it and put in new gas. yes all dielel handles are green. someone was prolly just messing around and hung the diesel handle on the gas and vise versa.</TD></TR></TABLE>

But all the other handles were green as well at the gas station.. the only ones there had black handles were the ones with two nozzles at one pump.. black for diesel and green for unleaded..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by StockEG9 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

whats that?</TD></TR></TABLE>

nevermind...you didn't pick up on that one...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDMDA9 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

nevermind...you didn't pick up on that one...</TD></TR></TABLE>

This is no time for jokes children


Anyway it isnt diesel in my gas tank because I drained out the tank and filled it up with 93 octane but it is still doing the same thing. One thing to note however is that after I filled it up with 93 oct, the car started up just fine.. I didn't have to tap the gas pedal to get it started like I usually do but soon after this it would die right away.. the only way i can keep it running is if keep my foot on the pedal slightly to keep rpm above 1k... if it goes below that it will just die..
Just did a compression test again as well... numbers were

from left to right

220 205 200 235

Those numbers seem ok?

If you have any other suggestions please let me know.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by StockEG9 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">... If you have any other suggestions please let me know. </TD></TR></TABLE>How about a ruptured diaphragm in the FPR? Check the vacuum line - there shouldn't be any gasoline in it. That would make it real rich.

How about a plugged fuel filter?

Either way, you can measure fuel pressure to check.