HELP! Need to know what this part is!

I pulled out what I THINK is the charcoal canister from my emmisions system but there's no charcoal in it! Can someone tell me if this is the charcoal canister or if I'm way off?
 

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It's real name is an Evaporative Emissions Canister or Fuel Vapor Canister....or something like that. It is used to store fuel vapors from the fuel tank and send them to be burnt off by the engine when running. In my truck's canister there are supposed to be charcoal particles imbedded in the filter element that is inside the canister. I am not sure how the newer cars achieve this same function, though....

Maybe the filter is in the upper portion of the first picture.... :shrug:
 
ToplessStang said:
That is a VMV which stands for Vapor Management Valve. It's what controls the flow of the vapors from the vapor canister to the intake. Why do you have it apart???

It's back together and put back in right now... I'm trying to find the cause of my unstable idle and fuel odor on engine start. I wasn't able to find anything else that resembled a charcoal canister, where is it located? I thought it was up in that wheel well area?

Thanks btw, no one seemed to know what it was! :hail2:
 
ultrashock2112 said:
It's back together and put back in right now... I'm trying to find the cause of my unstable idle and fuel odor on engine start. I wasn't able to find anything else that resembled a charcoal canister, where is it located? I thought it was up in that wheel well area?

Thanks btw, no one seemed to know what it was! :hail2:


No problem. The canister is behind the drivers side rear wheel under the rear bumper.
 
WOW....I thought I was the only one having this problem. I have the same problem and it continues while I drive. As a matter of fact the only time it doent do it is when I am running it real hard. Then I get a smell like hot/melting plastic. But shortly after it goes back to this smell like raw fuel. Please post what you find. I will be digging around on my car tomorrow to see what I find also.
 
bgrd351 said:
*bump* anyone?

I'll definitely let you know what I find... I'm going to check the charcoal canister to make sure everything is connected up properly. I've checked just about everything else in the engine and found no obvious problems... If there isn't anything wrong with the canister I think I'm going to go ahead and replace the MAF. :shrug:
 
ultrashock2112 said:
I'll definitely let you know what I find... I'm going to check the charcoal canister to make sure everything is connected up properly. I've checked just about everything else in the engine and found no obvious problems... If there isn't anything wrong with the canister I think I'm going to go ahead and replace the MAF. :shrug:

Before you go ahead and spend all the money to replace the MAF, maybe you can clean it first???

http://www.bullittarchive.com/html/modules/articles/article.php?id=77
 
ToplessStang said:
It actually does sound like a VMV problem. Without tests of course, I can't be sure.

Hmm... I took out the charcoal canister, now that you've told me where it is and it was really dirty, it looks like the previous owner went off-roading or something! Anyways, I cleaned it all up, cleaned the seals and everything... My Hayne's manual said to try blowing into the inlet on the canister and there should be little or no air passing through, but when I did it just flowed freely... I'm wondering if the valve (can't remember what it's called) that is right on the canister is bad? I started the car and felt for suction on the pipe that leads to the VMV and felt nothing... Should I?
 
***update*** well, I found a lot of brown/red stuff in my fuel filter last week, changed it again yesterday (clean this time) and changed the TPS. outcome --revs better and seems to have more power again. also in the 4-5 times i have driven it around since then I have not had the gas smell......yet
 
bgrd351 said:
***update*** well, I found a lot of brown/red stuff in my fuel filter last week, changed it again yesterday (clean this time) and changed the TPS. outcome --revs better and seems to have more power again. also in the 4-5 times i have driven it around since then I have not had the gas smell......yet

I tested my TPS and everything seemed to be okay with it... I've also replaced my fuel filter already - when I replaced it the old one had almost black fuel coming out of the inlet of the filter... Maybe there was a lot of crap in there and I need to replace it again. :shrug: After today I really think there must be something wrong with the fuel vapor system. I'm starting to think I should bring it into Ford, I really don't want to though. :notnice: