Whats up with the charcoal canister?

[drege]

Before my 1200 mile trip to oregon and back I noticed a blown out 1/2" hose on the top of the charcoal canister (refered to as CC from now on) uppon further inspection it seems it may have had something like a corrosive liquid settle in the low slung part or just got hot and melted, but it was on the bottom perfectly.
I replaced it with a straight piece that I feel is not too badly kinked.
There also feels like there is one on the bottom of the CC also rotted out or atleast covered with grime; from what I can tell the damn thing goes into a metal pipe INSIDE THE FRAME!!!, I managed to loose it from the frame and liquid gas dribbled out, just a little bit - though I could be remembering wrong - I'm just too damn busy this year to even inspect my broken transmission crossmember bolt, let alone try and figgure out the EVAP system, luckily most of my commuting is by rail rather than rubber.
And yea it does run weird, kinda similar to the 1300cc 1st gen CR-X I had with a buggered up EVAP system and leaking CC, just kinda runs SHARTY

[dlb]

drege, i'm unclear on what you're saying. it sounds like

- one of the top hoses of the CC was melted
- the bottom hose is possibly melted?
- the bottom hose drips gas

is that right? your US charcoal cans are slightly different from our canadian ones but basically they work like this: gas vapors from the tank and the carb float bowl are captured and stored in the CC until certain running conditions where the engine sucks those vapors out.

you are correct about the bottom hose, it simply rests inside the car frame. it is supposed to suck fresh air in to mix with the gas vapors.

if your CC is dripping, it must be gas from either the tank or float bowl.

the CC is really easy to service, just blow it out with compressed air like the FSM shows. if it's really stuck, spray carb cleaner in the clogged ports, let it sit, blow it out, repeat as necessary. i've resurrected a few CC's with that technique.

[drege]

I swamped the car to the air cleaner (I know, sooo stupid!) before my trip to oregon, what would that do?
I know I sucked several ounces of liquid water down the carburetor and secondary water vapor off the manifold - I cleared the barrels after the swamping, but could the CC be waterlogged?

[dlb]

depending on how long and how deep the car was submerged for, i guess it's possible some water got up in the CC from the bottom hose in the frame, but that's it. maybe the dripping you found was just water hanging out in the hose from when you drenched the car.

the only other ways in to the CC are from the gas tank and float bowl. any water that entered the carb via the air intake would have gone straight into the combustion chamber.

[Petros]

take your CC out and soak it in soapy water, blow it out with carb cleaner, should fix it.