Parked on an incline, car barely started or ran.

[John Deere Boy]

I drove 700 miles Tuesday from southern Texas to a friend's place in Oklahoma, and parked uphill in her driveway. The next morning I went to move the car and it barely started, ran first on four, then five cylinders, and was puking out tons of white smoke. It eventually evened out and the smoke went away. I parked in a more level spot that night and had no trouble driving another 800 miles home yesterday. I haven't detected any water in the oil or loss of coolant. Did the incline having anything to do with this? What happened anyway? My LIM gaskets are about 6 or 7 years old.

[Bing]

Was it pointed nose up or nose down?

[John Deere Boy]

Nose up. Nose down would be a decline hehe.

[clm2112]

Kinda bizzare.

Any water in the fuel tank should have settled at the far end of the tank with the nose pointed up, away from the fuel pump pickup. The angle would have to be pretty steep to let the crank case oil soak the rear cylinder bank (like >45 degrees uphill). Any sort of coolant leak in the intake manifold would have been made worse by having the all the coolant at a level higher than the cylinder heads, but the leak wouldn't just "go away" with the car back on level ground.

[Bing]

Thats just a stumper, I would monitor the vitals closely and see if you notice anything out of the ordinary.

Being a 93 I'm assuming you're running good ole green coolant. So technically gasket deterioration should be out of the equation, but it still makes me wonder if theres something small with that back bank.

[91NinetyEight]

Any water in the fuel tank should have settled at the far end of the tank with the nose pointed up, away from the fuel pump pickup

And so would the fuel.... How full was the tank, and is it original? I've heard that the baffles inside the tank can break loose and cause fuel starvation going around tight corners or on hills when there's 1/4 tank or less of fuel remaining.

[00Beast]

I would be willing to bet the fuel pump was sucking air or not getting adequate fuel.

[John Deere Boy]

Fuel tank was about half full. I ran it completely down to E on the way home (420 miles on the tank of gas) and didn't have any starvation problems. It sure got flooded with something but i dunno what or how. It's up on jacks tonight waiting for new rear struts tomorrow. I'll change the oil tomorrow and take a darn good look at it. This truly is bizarre; never had anything like this happen. The Bonneville is normally the fastest and best starting vehicle of the 30-some we have on the farm.

Edit: yeah Bing, it's got the good 'ol green. Original tank, 8 yr. old pump. The suction strainer fell off of the pump once so i know what starvation does to it: it just dies.

[Jrs3800]

I'd use some fuel system formula or fuel dry of some sort.... Could have picked up a tad of water...

[clm2112]

And so would the fuel....

Um, no. Water is heavier than gasoline. You leave a mix of water and gas alone for a little while it will form layers, with all the water at the bottom. (That's why airplane fuel tanks have petcocks on the bottom, during pre-flight you draw fuel out of the petcocks to see if there is any water in the tanks, because it always settles to the lowest point.) So what I was saying is that with the tank on an incline, any water in the fuel tank would be well away from the pickup and not get sucked up by the pump...he should have been getting clean gas, even if he was under a 1/4 tank of fuel.