93 Town & Country, 10mins idling per gal.

[fjpark]

Hi, I have a 93 T&C, AWD, 3.3L V6, fuel injection, 145K miles. Two days ago, the engine area was showered with a garden hose sprayer for 5-10 seconds while it was not running which may have caused a problem because after 2-3 hours I tried starting the engine. The exhaust was a very thick white fog with a strong gasoline smell. There were a lot of water drops on the exhaust pipe and it looked and smelled like a mixture of water and gas.

The fuel gauge dropped very quickly. About 10 minutes of idling I would guess that on gallon of gas was consumed. The check engine light was on and the trouble codes that I got by the on and off method were 12 - 27 - 55. Is this an ECM computer problem or something else? What part went bad and would need replacement?

This car had the same symptons when I bought it five months ago with the only difference being that the symptons were a much lighter fog, gas smell and water drops.

I would greatly appreciate any help in this matter.

[slantsixness]

You have a vacuum leak. Showering it with water introduced water into the combustion chamber.

The leak could be as simple as a hose disconnected or frayed, or the intake gaskets, plenum gasket, brake booster or even a cracked head... anywhere vacuum is present... and water is introduced, you can get this result.

Thats my opinion. The heavy fuel smell is from the computer compensating for the water vapor. It will likely stop that when the water is all gone.

lastly, there's a chance that the water has caused a sensor (map,TPS etc.) to fail, too..and it might have been failing for some time and aggravated by the water.

Tom

[fjpark]

Thanks for your reply, Tom. I checked the vaccum hoses as far as I could, they looked fine. I replaced the TPS and MAP sensor no difference. So far the engine was on about 20 times for a total of about 20 mins, the symptoms stayed the same. Yesterday I made 3/16 dia. hole under the catalytic converter to check if there was water or gas. When I started the engine, a lot of liquid was spraying out endlessly like windex. It was gas with a beige color. Does it mean the fuel injectors not working properly? Frank