during the snow storm yesterday I spent several hours nearly parked on my commute from work. after about an hour i started smelling what I thought was oil. This smell seemed to come and go as I was traveling for a time then stopped... however, today the smell transformed into a gas smell, very strongly.

the valve cover gaskets were replaced by the PO fairly recently- i dont think the other suspect gaskets (cam tension, half moon dealie..)

one other thing is that since I purchased her, a couple weeks ago, I have been in the engine bay cleaning & fixing (new crank case breather hoses, new temp sensor). Thus I have removed all the plastic covers including the long battery / mini fire wall plastic cover with thick rubber gasket.

One thought was that because of the snow stuck between the windshield and engine compartment vent caused the cabin intake duct to pull air directly from the engine compartment.

thoughts? first oil then gas smell?

some images


btw, is this leaky, cracked rubber hose (next to the passenger side fuel rail, a coolant line?

 

well, i cleaned out the cabin air filter, intake and reassembled the plastic cover behind the mini heat shield. it would seem that I have answered half of my own question- which is that the rubber gasket and plastic shrouds for the cabin air intake are indeed necessary to separate the outside air from the engine compartment and that the snow stuck around the base of the windshield blocked clean air.

however, this only half solves my problem which is that i have some sort of fuel/oil leak around the block. Any good places to start to look? looking from the top of the engine i cant see any obvious suspects