Fuel injector rebuild?

[trucku]

Fuel injector rebuild and cleaning

Does anyone know how to or can point me to information on Fuel injector rebuilding.

I want to pull them and clean them, replace the o-rings, filter basket, pintle caps and spacers. I have seen lots of sites that offer the service, but I cannot have a dead truck for a bunch of days. I also can't afford $14 a injector, plus shipping to and from.

 

[trucku]

Bought a ultrasonic cleaner.

I plan to use it on my injectors for a thorough clean then rebuild them. I plan to pulse them during the cleaning cycle.

I have lots of dirt buildup around one of my injectors right now. looks like a fuel leak right at the fuel rail o-ring. I can't see if any other injectors are leaking. I don't know how bad it is, since I don't really ever smell fuel except on one occasion when I was very hard on the gas.

I plan to clean the injectors and my fuel pump for my Triumph TT600 also with the ultrasonic cleaner. I let the fuel sit and gummed up the system. The bike wont start.

I will take pictures and post them when I pull the truck injectors.

 

[High_Order1]

have you done this before? what will you use to clean them? how will you pulse the pintle? How hard were they to remove? Neat project, by the way.


-Shawn

 

[trucku]

This will be my first time.
They will be cleaned in the ultrasonic cleaner. I am looking for a good cleaning solution that is safe for the injector. I will pulse them with a push button switch. From what I have read nothing pointed to pulsing or not being more successful. The ultrasonic cleaner is pretty thorough. The one I bought also can heats your cleaning solution.

 

[trucku]

I performed a cleaning and replaced the o-rings on my fuel injectors.

Here is the before

And here they are after each of them received multiple 8 minute cycles with liquid over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I changed the the water about 3 times per each injector, because it became so dirty.

filter basket installed flush

I bought my injector rebuild kit from Doctor Injector on ebay ( almost a year ago).
They are great there. I emailed him with some questions and had a response the same day every time and again that is after a purchase so long ago. Nice people (Russ) there!

Here is what the kit looks like. Its basically new o-rings and pintle caps and filter baskets. Some injectors get spacers and different looking caps. They send the right ones with complete vehicle information.

hardest part about this was removing the filter basket. You take a #10 screw and grab that filter and pull....pull hard. I don't have a vice or anything, so I wedged the head of the screw into the side of my steel wire shelf in office and pulled. That allowed enough leverage to free the filter basket. To installed them I just put them in and held my injector upside down and gave it a quick whack on my wooden table. It seated the filter basket flush with the injector. All of the o-rings were coated with petroleum jelly. I also coated the fuel rail injector connections and the injector seat in the intake with it. The only thing I did not change was the pintle caps.

They installed fine with no leaks.

Intake Removal

If your going this far replace your intake gasket. I did and the truck is running a lot better now. Idle is nice and she responds right away to the throttle. I was getting a slight bog or pause when I mashed down on the accelerator hard. Now it is instant.

NOTE: I pulsed my injectors during cleaning with low voltage and after cleaning while forcing oil into them. I primed them with the oil, because I did not want to risk any kind of oxidation internally

Note: I went ahead and cleaned my MAF, throttle body and egr solenoid with my ultrasonic cleaner also. The combination of all this has pepped up my truck. I will do a Sea Foam treatment soon and replace the plugs and wires.

 

[seth247]

saaweet!

I may need to purchase one if these ultrasonic cleaners!

 

[trucku]

That cleaner saved my motorcycle, CHECK THIS OUT

 

[BrooklynBay]

This is a review on the ultrasonic cleaner: http://www.explorerforum.com/reviewpost/showproduct.php/product/371/cat/all

 

[f2racer]

trucku, are you only trying to get the outside of the injectors clean?

If you're having fuel delivery problems, I'd look into getting your injectors professionally serviced. I've had the injectors on both my 94 Mustang GT and 93 RX-7 serviced at RC Engineering. They not only clean the injectors but balance, calibrate and perform flow volume tests to ensure uniformity when you get the injectors back. It made a HUGE difference with my RX-7, not only did it make the car run much better, but mileage went up by 5mpg (from 15 to 20mpg on mostly highway driving).

 

[trucku]

An ultrasonic cleaner will clean wherever the fluid can get to (inside).The insides were cleaned just like with a "professional" service. There was no need for flow testing them. I did plenty of research on in the end its just best to replace your injector with a new one than send it out and spend all that money. You can perform your own tests to see if your injector is bad.

For you to pick up such a mileage gain would mean you had some serious buildup.


My motorcycle had clogged injectors and I very successfully cleaned the outside and insides of my injectors with my Ultrasonic Cleaner. why spend money on something you can do yourself. Just servicing my motorcycles fuel pump with my cleaner saved me almost $200, when I was told by a mechanic to replace it. Each injector alone was over $150 dollars x4. Again they were thought to be a loss by mechanic.

Do it yourself when you can guys/gals! That is what this site is for.

 

[f2racer]

trucku, I'm not advertising... I do quite a bit of work on my cars myself, but I've stayed away from the fuel delivery system (other than pulling the injectors or changing the fuel filter).

It sounds like the ultrasonic cleaner worked well. I'm not knocking DYI, but I don't have the knowledge or equipment to ensure that the injectors are properly balanced or have the right flow pattern.

In the case of the RX-7, where injectors are $150 a piece (and they're the not so common side-fed units), most of the research I did said that sending the injectors out made the most sense. The car was just shy of 100k miles at the time and the report I got from RC stated that 2 injectors were leaking and 3 had poor spray patterns.

In the case of the Mustang, RC had a group deal for a Mustang forum I used to belong to and I got a pretty good discount to have them cleaned. Looking at the price of Ford injectors, you're right I probably could have gotten brand new for only 2x the price that I paid to have them cleaned. I'll keep that in mind if I feel that my wifes Explorer's injectors need to be cleaned.

 

[Mr. Logger]

What solution were the injectors cleaned in?

 

[trucku]

trucku, I'm not advertising... I do quite a bit of work on my cars myself, but I've stayed away from the fuel delivery system (other than pulling the injectors or changing the fuel filter).

It sounds like the ultrasonic cleaner worked well. I'm not knocking DYI, but I don't have the knowledge or equipment to ensure that the injectors are properly balanced or have the right flow pattern.

In the case of the RX-7, where injectors are $150 a piece (and they're the not so common side-fed units), most of the research I did said that sending the injectors out made the most sense. The car was just shy of 100k miles at the time and the report I got from RC stated that 2 injectors were leaking and 3 had poor spray patterns.

In the case of the Mustang, RC had a group deal for a Mustang forum I used to belong to and I got a pretty good discount to have them cleaned. Looking at the price of Ford injectors, you're right I probably could have gotten brand new for only 2x the price that I paid to have them cleaned. I'll keep that in mind if I feel that my wifes Explorer's injectors need to be cleaned.

Initially I was wondering if I should send the injectors out. After much reading I invested in the ultrasonic cleaner. Knowing that the injectors on my bike were just clogged I knew replacing them was just a waste of money. The fuel pump was touch and go until I got it to spin. I thought it was toasted, but sure enough the fuel gummed it up pretty bad. All in all this was a good route to take.

It was a good experience. I learned a lot cleaning them and replacing the o-rings and filter basket. I did have an injector leak past the o-ring on the rail. I noticed it when would put my foot down and then smelled lots of fuel one day. I can say now the truck runs a lot better. It really pepped up and feel responsive immediately.

I think the cleaner is a good investment when your into cleaning small parts. I cleaned my mass airflow sensor, iac and egr solenoid.

I understand what you are saying. I contemplated building a flow bench, but didn't have the time and space to do it. My wife was already mad about a Ultrasonic Cleaner next to the coffee maker...lol. It would have been interesting to see the before and after flow patterns. I think for a DIY like you a cleaner works great on parts you don't want to hit with harsh chemicals and are small enough to fit the inside it.

The true test was on my Triumph TT600. I think the damn xploder will run with a straw as an injector...lol

Side fed. I never seen them before. I hear you about sending them out rather than risking some kind of damage or infective cleaning.

What I found in the case of the xploder injectors were that the o-rings and filter basket was its the same stuff you can buy from ebay. Honestly my rebuild kit sat for a year till I mustered enough courage to pull the whole intake off and and work on the injectors. I was fearing some disaster...lol. In the end I fixed what must have been a leaky intake (installed new intake gaskets). The difference was so much that the engine changes tone when I remove my oil filler cap.

Thanks for the info on your part.

 

[trucku]

What solution were the injectors cleaned in?

Water is all I put the parts in. I did as a tiny bit of dish soap to get some lingering bubbles off the pieces and allow cavitation to do its work. I did not want to put any cleaners in the unit to hurt the parts or the stainless steel cleaning reservoir. The parts are already have fuel and grease on them. When heated to the nearly 150degrees the water is very very effective at removing them. Everything was immediately dried after the cleaning cycle and being so hot they dried themselves well.

The injectors were pulsed after cleaning and filled with oil to flush out any water and keep them from forming any type of oxidation (if that is possible internally)

 

[sethmorgan]

Doing this job this weekend. Wish me luck.