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Just rolled past 220,000 today! Still working as our daily driver. When I Was looking around under the hood today though I saw this...



If you can't see, it's a frayed braided hose at the passenger side firewall that is really not connected at all like it's supposed to be to the metal line that goes through the firewall. I tried to follow the line and if I had the right one(the car wasn't jacked to I was going by feel) it went under the car all the way to the rear axle area.

But my big question is what is this?



I'm talking about the canister right in front of the windshield washer reservoir. The hose coming from it and going over the top of the reservoir is the hose that is really frayed on the other end. I tried to find this part in the haynes manual(haha) But no dice. Other then the frayed hose the can has a rubber hose going from it to the top of the intake manifold. Any ideas?[/img]

tacomagabe wrote: my big question is what is this?



I'm talking about the canister right in front of the windshield washer reservoir. The hose coming from it and going over the top of the reservoir is the hose that is really frayed on the other end. I tried to find this part in the haynes manual(haha) But no dice. Other then the frayed hose the can has a rubber hose going from it to the top of the intake manifold. Any ideas?[/img]

It's an evaporation carbon canistor. Common on many cars and part of the (fortunately) minimal emissions control on E12's
Fuel vapors are circulated back to a small tank in the trunk.
That pipe in your first picture is probably the return line.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partgrp.do?m ... g=16&fg=10

ahhh ok thanks! So that disconnected hose isn't a real big deal huh? So what about the small hose running from the intake manifold to the canister?

Now that I think about it I was once talking to a guy with an e28 and he was showing me something about how excess carbon was picked up and routed back into the intake if I remember right. He said it could create buildup over time and had taken the hose off the intake and routed it about where the carbon collector is on the e12. It was just spitting the extra fluid on the frame of the car but better there then in the intake I guess..

No, it's there and there for a good reason. Granted, the car will run fine with or without it, but it's a painless smog device. It captures, then burns off, all the vapors trying to evaporate from the gas tank to the atmosphere and cause smog. Other than having to replace hoses every 15 or 20 years, it causes no problems, and keeps about 20% of the smog out of the atmosphere. It's a good thing.