did the vandals screw up my motor??

[Craig 94 TA GT]

Ok, I think I had enough for the week - I'm going over the edge.

I got into the car after work and started her up. (By the way, it drove to work perfectly fine - this is the first time I've driven it since the incident). It started idling at 300-400 RPM, barely staying alive. I shut her off...then restarted her and the same thing happened. I revved it up to 2000 and then seemed to idle fine. However, at every other stop light, it idled at 300-400 RPM and sounded like it was missing really bad. Once over 1000 RPM, it seemed to drive fine. But every other time under 1000 RPM, it stumbles really badly. So my question: which sounds like the culprit:
1) Those #$@# punk kids put something (water, sugar, salt, paint, etc.) in my gas tank and something is going wrong.
2) Since I didn't have a gas cap for a week (1 day sitting outside, 5 days sitting in the garage), moisture condensed on it and it now there's some water in the tank.
3) I just had my opti replaced and it's opti related

If it's #1 or #2, I'm moving from .22 angry to 12 gauge pi$$ed. By the way, I noticed a new tiny crack in the windshield, and I'm 99% sure it wasn't there before the incident.

[TimeLord]

Dump all the gas , replace gas filter put a GREAT injector cleaner,metal bottle[or have a Pro job done]run a 1/4 of gas,change gas filter and hope everything comes back.

And park your car somewhere else,those F'ers have it in for you and they don't appear intimidated in the least!!!

[Craig 94 TA GT]

Thanks TimeLord...it's in the garage for good now. How would I go about getting rid of all the gas? The only way I can think is to take out my fuel line from the fuel filter and keep turning the key to the "on" position (not starting the engine, but just using the pump to keep spraying the fuel out). Would this work, or is there another way?

[TimeLord]

That would appear to be the only way I could think of,but I am not mechanically inclined.

Maybe Injuneer or Joe or some of the other hands on guys can give you a better way,but you got to get rid of all that gas,just to be safe.

Don't know how you would go about checking if there was any foreign material in it?

That really sucks,hope it turns out to be nothing serious!!!

[pugmire]

Quote: If it's #1 or #2, I'm moving from .22 angry to 12 gauge pi$$ed.

Man, if I were you, I would already be 10 megaton thermonuclear warhead pi$$ed. Changing the fuel filter sound like a really good idea. It may also be worth while to run a little more gas through after you empty all the old stuff. And needless to say, check the old filter and gas for anything that shouldn't be there. Any idea what type of paint it was (i.e. water based, or something else)?

[Black97]

What a pain in the behind. Where are you planning on putting all the gas or is the tank almost empty? Maybe you could fill the gas into bottles and make molotov cocktails in case the vandals come back.

Aren't there some gadgets to "syphon" out your gas tank? (Small transfer pumps?) Whatever you do try to run it through a filter if you can to see if there's anything in the tank.

This would only work if you drained it through the fill hole I guess. It wouldn't detect salt, sugar or water but if they thrown in any other debris you might be able to tell and clean you tank accordingly. That would require some decent flow though to suck debris up if some was in there.

[fastTa]

Hey Craig there is an easy way to drain your gas out of the tank.

There is a small wire terminal that extends from a large bundle of wires right in front of the PCM. This provides a way to "short" the relay to the fuel pump. The easiest way to do this I found was to stick a paper clip into this small terminal. Then get a pair of jumper cables and connect the positive side of the jumper cable to the positive post on the battery. Then simply touch or clamp the other positive end of the jumper cable to the paper clip and your fuel pump will run as long as you are touching the paper clip. Don't run the pump dry so as soon as the fuel stops coming out of the line in front of your fuel filter, disconnect the jumper cable.

Hope this helps.

Here is a picture of this terminal:

[Jay 02 TA ws6]

I suggest stealth, armed surveilance of your car. Don't garage it, give them another chance to f*#@$ with it. When they do, you could always shoot them.

[Craig 94 TA GT]

Thanks Kevin, that helped a lot...saved lots of time draining the gas.
Now I'm off to see if this will work and if she'll run right again.

[Craig 94 TA GT]

After draining the fuel, replacing the filter, and putting in fuel injector cleaner with < 1/4 tank of gas, this is what happened...
I ran the fuel pump a few times because we dried the fuel system out...so by turning the key from off to on, the pump pressurized the system. I then tried to start the T/A up, but it just kept turning over and wouldn't catch. Again, another round, but wouldn't catch. I waited a few moments, tried to start it again and it finally caught...but again it was idling at 300-400 RPM with heavy stumbling and smelling pretty rich, but of course the motor was still cold. I tried to hit the gas to bring the RPMs up, but each time I pressed the gas, the motor just "paused." Literally, it was like a reverse response to throttle by the motor not doing anything. Then, a few moments later, the idle got a little better and went up to 400-500 RPM. Still rough, but better. Again, a few moments later, it started to idle normally. It still smelled really rich, but now it seemed to idle and rev fine. After that, I took it out for a test drive and it ran perfect...no stumble, no pause, no hestiation, and idle perfect. I got on it, as well, to make sure it's ok in the whole power band, and it seems be perfect again. It still has a slightly funny odor in the exhaust - one hard to explain, but it seems to be getting smaller.
So, I'm guessing it was running really bad at first because it still had the tampered gas in the system. But once the old gas was finally gone, and the new fuel came in, the car was perfect. I'm going to start it up tomorrow morning to make sure this problem is gone.
Many thanks to Steve93Z for helping me these late hours.
And thanks to all for your replies and suggestions.

[TruckMuddr]

Hey, I'm glad to hear you got it runnin again, I still can't beleive someone would do that. If it was me and I found out who did it, and they had a car, it would come back on them 10 fold.

[99WS6TA]

If I was you I would get one of those locking gas caps. because i had my gas cap stolen a while back. nothing was done to the gas or my car just the gas cap stolen. oh yeah and the ws-6 chrome vavle stem caps that i had. that pissed me off more than anything. But then I started to look around at the other cars and they had there chrome caps missing also. but everyones black rubber ones were left alone. so I know it was no one trying to mess with just me. Damn kids probably wanted the caps for there bikes.

[Bojangles1432]

My caps were stolen too. So i took the ones of my bike and put them on the car. Evidently the kids dont like things that arent shiney.

[TimeLord]

Remember to re change your gas filter after that 1/4 tank of gas!!!

Happy to hear that our remedy seemed to work,about time you had some other kind of luck than bad!!!

[Craig 94 TA GT]

Just when I thought luck was finally on my side, I started it up this morning, and the same thing happened.
Didn't catch the first try, then the second it finally caught. But again, it was sputtering and sitting at 400 RPM. After a few seconds, it finally kicked up to normal idle. So I drove it to get a few more gallons of gas (only had < 2 gallons + 1 bottle of fuel injector cleaner). It seemed to run fine, except the idle just didn't seem right. Again, I stopped it, put some gas in it, started her up and the same thing...idle was bad. I got home, shut it off, then started up again and it idled fine. I'm really stumped now
Maybe it is opti related?? But it's not throwing a code.
I also forgot to mention...I hear a REALLY loud metal clank once in a while when I try to start it up. I've never heard this before.