Expert: autohelp - 6/30/2009

Question
#1...I bought the car in Wa. and ferried her back to Ca. It's a federal car, but nonetheless, she flunked the NOx emissions and the fuel tank wouldn't hold pressure. For the NOx I changed out all vacuum lines, cleaned out the EGR and changed the O2 sensor. My problem is that I don't know how to route the vac. hoses to the EGR solinoid. Do you have a pix of the routing? The placard just shows one line into the sol. from the TVS switch and then one line out from the sol. to the EGR valve, which I have done, but on the solinoid there is a drumlike structure that has hose nipples attached and the old decrepit line that I replaced looped out of and back into the sol "drum". I have reproduced that configuration as well, but I'm suspicious of it as it doesn't seem to make sense.
#2...The tank wouldn't hold pressure so I swapped it out, changed all rubber fuel & vapor lines but left the steel ones. I used the old gasket, which was a soft circular one in what appeared to be in good shape. Long story short; she flunked again. I went to the Chevy dealership and got a new gasket. This one is different in that it's harder and it has 3 lips to hold it rigidly in place as i tamp the locking ring down. My question is this; Do I need to use any type of gasket sealer with this new gasket? Also, I'm going to pressurize the tank and vapor line separately. How many kPa or P.S.I. should I use.  I don't want to pop or rupture anything. What is a good leakdown time?
Lastly, I would like to thank you guys. What a great service. Have a good day and thanks again. Sincerely; Mike

Answer
Your biggest problem is that The federal car has standard emissions system.

Californis has a more complex system which has more emission control devices on the engine.

Your ONLY choice is to get an estimate from a service facility about installing a California emissions system, Which is going to cost you a TON of money or sell it.

I spent my whole 30 years in Florida and Pennsylvania and we RARELY saw any California cars and the ones that we did see were a plumbers nightmare. Which is why I suggested you have a California facility look at it and advise you accordingly.