Dirt Wagon
TYF Newbie
- Joined
- May 12, 2014
- Posts
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Hey, Just thought I'd share my experience with a recent issue I had with my 2010 Tahoe (200,000 km on it). It began with a faint smell of gas near the driver's side rear quarter and a slow starting condition (basically, had to crank for a few seconds when cold before it would fire...no delay on warm restart). It was like this for a week or so, then the 'tighten gas cap' message came on the display and the check engine light came on (code P0455...large evap leak). So my first move was to waste $ on a new GM gas cap...no change. Then after destroying my spare tire winch mechanism because of a seized secondary latch, I inspected the evap system...could find no obvious issue. Fortunately, I had a bit of a clue in that there was a small bit of fuel running down the outside of the gas tank...not enough to drip on the ground, but enough to see staining on the tank. Long story short, I dropped the tank and found that the issue was a pinhole on the main fuel outlet of the fuel pump (the 90 degree metal elbow that connects to the fuel line). Actually, the whole top of the pump was rusty, thanks to the road salting they do here in Canada. So while the pump itself still ran strong, the only fix was a fuel pump replacement (also a pain with a rusted lock ring...an hour of pounding on it with a brass hammer barely moved it...ended up snipping the ring with shears to loosen it (this may be bad advice...obviously spark avoidance is key...but interestingly enough, the dealership had multiple lock rings in stock, so perhaps this is a common way to remove rusted lock rings). Anyhow, put it back together and it's all good now (code cleared itself b/c battery was disconnected, and hasn't come back on). No gas smell, and no starting issues. As I figure, when the truck sat for a while, the pinhole allowed the fuel system to depressurize, which tripped the evap code, and meant that the truck had to be cranked while the pump built up pressure...incidentally, before the swap, I could avoid the slow start if I turned the key to the ON position for a few seconds (which engages the fuel pump, as most will know), before turning the key to START. Hopefully this saves someone from unnecessarily changing evap parts, as I almost did. Cheers, Andy
