98 S70 glt Engine issues major!

[rspi]

How long have you had this car?

[Duake]

How long have you had this car?

I bought it used in September 2009. Never had any issues like this ever.

I think I figured out what happened. Some miscreant put sugar or some other junk in my tank here at work. I work on a college campus and for a while I have had no gas door on because it got ripped off in a car wash. I believe someone took my gas cap off and just poured junk in there. My car was also keyed while here at work as well. No one has ever done anything like that to any car I've owned in my life.

I dug out a lot of the big chunks this past weekend and I thought I had taken care of the problem for the most part. After filling the tank up to the brim and driving around, that seemed to actually make it worse. Amazing considering how much crap I cleaned out of it.

After a few days of dealing with it, I finally opened it up last night (I seem to be a pro now at pulling the pump out and putting it back in) and there was about 12 gallons of gas in there so the tank was pretty full. I shined my LED flashlight in there and saw more "sand" bits and what looked like little rocks. Well, that's just great. I didn't feel like putting my hand in a relatively full tank, so I pulled the strainer off the pump and sure enough, crap all over the wire mesh. I cleaned it all off and put the strainer back on hoping that I'll have a couple of days of normalcy.

Well, it seemed to work fine this morning until about 20 minutes of driving, it started acting up again. Seriously? That fast?! What's another amazing thing is that when I turn around a specific corner, the car seems to just give up and almost dies because nothing is getting in the pump. Every time I make that turn this happens. Seems odd and I'm extremely aggravated with this happening.

The only thing I can think of to do is to drop the tank and clean out the bits somehow. I saw a tutorial on dropping the tank, but that was just to fix a broken hose. I'd have to disconnect everything just to get it out from under the car and try and turn it on its side to clean that junk out, correct? Should I have an auto place do it? I have a siphon that may be able to suck out the stuff and I used it on Sunday, but it was more effective to use my hand and scoop it out. Any thoughts?

[rspi]

I would just replace the tank or have someone else do it. Have you replaced the fuel door? Is it locking with the car?

[Duake]

Sorry for the late post here, guys.

I found out that it was just crystalized sugar. The stuff I had pulled out a month or so ago had actually melted in the container I put it in. I eventually just bought a stainless steel shop vac and just sucked it all out of my tank. That seemed to have fixed my issues all around. Wish I would have done that way back when.

I have also added some good fuel additives in the gas tank to help clean out some left over gunk and also in the engine and it seems like that stuff did the trick. Car is running well now and just turned over 159,000 miles. Hope to keep it until at least 300,000.

[rmmagow]

WOW, congrats. Keep that tank locked! I had something similar happen on an old Ford truck I had back in the 70's. Tanks dropped so easily I pulled it rinsed it out with a hose and let it dry in the sun for a few days and bought a locking gas cap. Glad you got it fixed.