[coralman]

Built a DIY evap tester that I got plans for off ebay. Uses regular mineral oil for the material to create smoke. I added some florescent dye to it to aid in leak finding. The heating element is just coiled nichrome wire onto a tiki torch wick. I used regulated nitrogen to push the smoke through. The regulator on the can brings it down to 1-1.5 lbs pressure. You could use shop air but I haven't got my new compressor yet. I use the nitrogen at work. The battery provides power through a 10 amp fuse. It works pretty well.

First place I attached it was the hose connections to the purge solenoid. Pulled them loose and connected it to the line going to the carbon cannister. Pull the blue vent off and plug it with your thumb. Let it work for a minute then look for leaks. I wasn't going to pull all the stuff off to get a good look at the cannister connections so I peaked around and never saw anything.

Second place I attached it was the line going to the check valve to test from there al the way back to the vac storage tank. Nothing there. Then I attached it to the nipple on the manifold and stuffed a rag in the throttle body. you can't see it in the pic but there was a good wisps coming out of the TB shaft bore.

 

[coralman]

Ran out of pic room. The last place I attached it was the tailpipe which was sealed with a rag and tape. It didn't run long and I had smoke pouring out from a band clamp. But the header gasket, donut, and the rest of the exhaust piping was fine.

 

[MrRoundel]

Nice work, coralman. I particularly like your support-bridge for the weight of the regulator. Is that your addition?

I've been thinking about making one of those puppies for a while. I even have the regulator and nichrome wire auction saved on Ebay. So far I've got the wiring and the baby oil:wink2:. I'm sure that both of my cars have vacuum leaks, and those smoke-testers seem to be the best way to find them. Good on ya for putting one together and putting to good use.

 

[coralman]

Yeah, I added the bracket for stability. Thanks MrR!

 

[Uniblurb]

Real cool coralman and great work! :thumbsup:

When I replaced my 96 4.0 header cracked at the welds I always thought it would nice to have a smoke machine for searching for exhaust, intake and vacuum leaks. I haven't had much luck using carb cleaner, starting fluid, etc, for finding vacuum leaks. And these products didn't help me find my rubber grommet leaking in the brake booster.

I'm kind of surprised the 'smoke' could get clear up to the header/manifold gasket from the tailpipe?

 

[ZeeJay1997]

That's some mad scientist stuff right there. Really cool!

So the TB bore, is the butterfly shaft leaking?

 

[coralman]

Yep Zee, I looked for one that didn't have play when I did the head and this is the best one I found.Its a minute amount but I will figure something out. It puts out a lot of smoke Uni so I feel pretty safe it made it up there.