so i went to start my 75 2.0 this morning. it has sat undriven for only 6 days, no big deal. i just removed the air pump and plugged the air injector jets last weekend.

i start it up and check out the engine bay to make sure that my plugs haven't backed out -- and i notice a very small amount of white smoke coming out of the exhaust -- i've never seen this with my car, engine runs great. perplexed, i think i smell fuel -- look back in the engine bay and notice a little pool of gasoline accumulating beneath the metal fuel rail on the drivers side (cylinders 1-2).

you've never seen a guy shut off an engine so quick! thank goodness i caught it before i started driving or the engine warmed up...

my question: could the white exhaust be related to this? i'm wondering if a fuel injector is plugged -- maybe that would put too much pressure in the fuel lines, making them leak?

in any case i think it's time to renew all of my fuel hoses (and perhaps install a fire extinguisher)

Smoke from too much fuel is blackish.. Oil smoke is blueish white.. white smoke is steam.

If you didn't drive the car for 6 days water just probably condensed in the exhaust.

-Aaron G>

Yep, scary stuff. 12 years ago when I was a poor dumb kid with my first delapidated 914 I smelled fuel one day and quickly parked and popped the engine lid. I was greeted with a nice mist of fuel. Yes, a mist. My first thought was "fuel air bomb". Yikes. The small curved piece of fuel line between an injector and the rail had developed a mall rupture. Fuel was puddling below it, and it was spraying out a mist of fuel just like an injector nozzle. Talk about worst-case. That's got to be the most combustible type of leak there is. Car didn't move an inch from that spot until I had replaced all the lines. My current 914? Drove it home from the seller's house and parked it until I had replaced all the lines. I don't like fires unless they are between a piston top and a combustion chamber.
-Ben M.

my thoughts exactly!!

that's a great (if disconcerting) story about the fuel mist.... you're a lucky guy..

nathan

So...

Pull the injectors and remove the "crimp" fitting on the fuel line to the injector and replace it with a short piece of fuel injection hose and a hose clamp.

They all spring a leak at the "bend" over time.


B