I would expect it to smell of gas somewhat...since it does have the vapors running through it.

But I'm wondering if these things can get pretty "full", kind of like an air filter or something like that...
Or maybe the valves on top are clogged?

Any diagnostics I can do with this thing to make sure its doing it's 'job' ?

 

They can get flooded with fuel and then they don't work. Not sure what style of canister you have, but if there's a paper filter on the bottom of the canister, you can change out that filter. If you've got a sealed canister, I don't think there is any maintenance you can do.

Not entirely sure if this would work, but I think if you hook the control vacuum line up to manifold vacuum instead of ported vacuum, your car should run really rich at idle. I'm not sure if there's any vacuum break solenoids in the way that would stop it from working at idle, but you could watch it on your O2 sensor, the volts should go way up.

 

The '86 should have a compressed glass filter on its bottom:



And '86 should also have a solenoid for EVAP purge control:



Verify that both are intact, and that there is vacuum available at the purge line.

 

Yep, thats the one I've got...

I asked the people at AdvanceAuto if they sell those filters, got a no.

So basically I should just unplug those vaccuum lines at the solenoid end and see if there's a vaccuum to be felt?

If so, that's easy enough.

 

I bought one, which I still have, at CarQuest a while back. If you need a part number let me know and I'll dig it out.

JamesC