Veyr doubtful... My seal looks pretty ordinary too...

So just to clarify, you have tried removing the solenoid and plugging the hoses together leaving the solenoid out with the canister still in place as it is meant to be? Just to emulate the hose running from the tank, through the canister and then straight into the manifold so that you have true sucking of tank fumes into the manifold?

Whats the odds the fuel pump has been changed the big nut on top of the tank didn't seal properly or is cross threaded and it's coming in through the boot? I've seen this before too?

Cheers,
Tim

'Doh, never thought of eliminating the solenoid that way. I've borrowed some 1/4" hosetails to do this.

It's sort of good and sort of bad that this is an intermittent problem. The temperature has to be over 32 deg or so for it to happen.

I'll try taking the solenoid valve out of the system and see how I go.

Agree, the caps just don't leak. They hold heaps of pressure even when old.
BUT.. Timmy's thought of a mis-seated or poorly tensioned fuel pump retainer ring is a friggin good one.. hell, even the one on my daily driver smells a bit in the boot cause I couldn't be a*** tightening it back up properly (the sender's been playing up).

Worth a sniff.. pop the metal pump area cover off and have a sniff..
Also as Timmy says, just bypass the solenoid into the manifold for a few days to see.
DON'T leave it that way though as I mentioned earlier! Fire/death/destruction etc

Ok, just went out to try the solenoid by-pass. It did not like idling without the valve in place (too rich?) and then after 15 seconds it was fine. I ran it for a couple of minutes to get it up to temperature with the bonnet closed, of course. The air flow was as fresh as a daisy.

Then, I re-connected the valve in line with the manifold etc and repeated the above. Same result.

Then, I by-passed it again. No change.

Two conclusions can be taken from this.

1) The valve is shagged so I vacuumed out the excess vapour from the carbon canister. Remedy: replace the valve with the Jaycar one Timmy suggested.

2) Ambient temperature wasn't high enough. Buut... there was a whiff of the petrol station before I started so the smelly stuff probably went down the tube.

Yeah you're right, you vac'ed out the vapours into the manifold.. Need a hot day to tell where it's coming from really.
Though if it smells again soon after a vacuum, you've got a leak somewhere.

Know what you could do? Grab a tin of camping stove butane ($2), put a spray tube on it, up-end it and dump some liquid butane into the tank via the fuel cap. Quickly screw it back on.
As the gas+odorant evaps, itll pressurise the tank.. you'll be able to smell out the exact area of the leak easy then. Use plenty of butane so's it don't all boil off straight away.

Ok, problem has not resurfaced since mega purging the system as above.

Car is still running the stock purge solenoid in place.