A few nights ago, i was working on my 1979 chevy camaro berlinetta. I changed the belts and it was running fine i was able to drive it around the block after wards and it ran great. The next morning I tried to start the car to move it and it started up great but i put it in reverse, and it started to squeal like it would if the belts were bad and the car just shut itself off. I tightened the belts and thought everything everything was fine. I started the camaro again (I did not hear any squealing like I did before) and i just started to put it in reverse. once it was in reverse, the car jerked (but didn’t shut off) and it was able to just idle there. A little afterwards it started to smell like gasoline(I was not able to go any where). Please tell me how I can fix this.
There is not enough information here to give you a meaningful diagnosis. Is it still squealing? Does it act up only when in reverse, or when in ‘drive’ as well? Is the idle speed normal or too high/low? Was the squealing coming from under the hood or elsewhere? When you say “I was not able to go anywhere”, what do you mean? Did you not try to go anywhere, or would the car not move?
Can you just give a better overall description of the situation?
no its not squealing now but when the car was in reverse, i was able to roll back a little bit but when i stepped on the gas a little bit i was not able to backup any faster then before. Then the car just back fired but it was coming from under the hood. All the noises and smells were all coming from under the hood. I was not able to get the car to move in any direction.
Take a look at the rubber hose that runs to the fuel pump on the side of the engine. This hose is supposed to flex when the engine twists from the torque imposed when power is supplied. That hose could be dried out where it’s starting to crack open.
Also, pull the oil dipstick out and smell the oil. If it smells like gas replace the fuel pump because the diaphram in the fuel pump ruptured and is now dumping gas into the oil.
Tester
Along with tester’s comment, the following may be obvious to you but don’t drive it if that is the case.
Gas mixed in with oil is a horrible lubricant so you will likely do damage.
I looked at all the hoses hooked up to the fuel pump and all look fine.The oil in the car seems just fine. What im going to try is to replace the fuel pump and see if that helps the problem. Thank you
Wouldn;t it make more sense to remove the belt and see what’s binding before starting to replace parts? Granted, the fuel pump would be a suspect, but it could also be something else that bound up. The gas smell could be misleading. If the engine were running and a bound up component stopped the crankshaft, there may be some raw gas fumes in the pipe that could have caused the smell.
well i replaced it because i want to replace i few things on the car any way. So I might as well change it out now instead of later.