During the summer, when I wasn't cutting firewood or working on the WellWell device, I was applying my wrench to the Passodeo. It just wasn't running right. Potential culprits included a few five dollar parts, so I replaced those first. Sure enough, testing the throttle position sensor did reveal a bit of jumpiness, but the overall situation did not improve.

Being a 20+ year old car, the next most likely culprit would be the fuel pump. A 15 dollar part, ok. The shop manual tells me that there are just 10 bolts to remove to do the job. Easy-peasy, right? Again, the manual writers omitted the first step, 1) Remove body from frame.

A few choice words and a lot of pressure washing later the bolts were located and removed. It may sound easy, but there was so little clearance, I could only move the wrench one ratchet click at a time, by my fingertips only. Parts ordered, parts received, bolt threads cleaned, reassemble!

There are three hoses from the tank, fuel out, fuel return and a tank vent. Be sure to mark their connections on the fixed endpoints before dissambly. The return and vent happen to be the same size on the Passodeo and I managed to swap these lines. Oops. The result was fuel dribbling from the vent port at the rear of the car. Opening the gas cap relieved the pressure enough to stop that. More troubleshooting needed.

Just to be certain that I would re-connect the right line to the right port, I disconnected the vent line at the purge solenoid/valve at the intake manifold to blow air through the line. No flow? WTF? Is there another valve somewhere? No, following the rubber hose to the steel tubing to the rubber hose at the far end revealed nothing interestng. A quick puff of air on the removed rubber hose was rewarded with a shower of charcaol granules. The hose was completely plugged. Checking at the other end revealed the same problem. Oh, no is the steel line also plugged? It sure was. Repair, replace, or bypass? It is a pipe, a small one, but still a pipe. I crafted a drain snake from a speedometer cable that I had not yet installed in a friend's car and a length of plastic drip-irrigation tubing. It took a couple of hours, but that line is flowing freely now! The vent valve and its' filter were plugged with granules, too. Better check the purge valve, that I replaced a few weeks ago. A few more chunks fell out of that.I can only wonder how much made it in to the intake, and then through the valves. Time will tell, I guess.