So injector #1 failed today

[Bowie69]

Driving down the road, suddenly only running on 4, maybe even three, weirdly seemed to go OK still, but lots of vibration when on-throttle, idled OK.

Came to a stop, looked at the exhaust, clouds of white smoke pouring out of it, rev it up, and nearly died form the fumes, which were now a mix of blue and white. 'Head gasket' was immediate thought...

Limped it home, rang where I was supposed to be going, and told them I wouldn't make it.

Bear in mind these are replacement, cleaned/refurbed Bosch injectors, not the supposedly horrid Hitachi ones.

Had it running, pulled the lead off #1, no change, had a good spark out the lead, stopped it and took the plug out -soaked with fuel, I mean properly wet.

Disconnected coil and cranked the engine over, fountains of fuel squirting out the plug hole "that'll be a problem then..."

Pulled fuel rail, removed injectors, and I can physically blow through injector #1 quite easily, so I can only imagine how much fuel was being squirted in on a start/crank.

My worries now are how long this is has been going on, it is clear to me that it is highly likely that my 'semi-warm starting problem' is going to be down to this. If this has been going on for a long while, then I dread to think what sort of state the bore is in after being washed in fuel. I have only done maybe a 1000 miles since MOT, so not too much, but dunno how long is too long on this one.

Have emailed the refurb company, will let you know my experiences....

Off to order 5l of some good oil to swap out for the contaminated stuff in there, and maybe cry a little.

Pete.


P.s. anyone got any 7A engines kicking about I may be in the market....

[K Simmonds]

You've probably got away with that if it was running 'OK' before the injector failed completely and you stopped running the engine soon after that. Have to assume it was chucking in some extra fuel but at least it was mostly being burnt until it flooded in and killed the spark.

Get some fresh oil in there and run it for a bit, if all seams well then it most likely is, you could also test the compression but in doing that there's always the risk of ending up with something new to worry about.

Good luck!

[Bowie69]

Cheers

I intend on doing a quick compression test to see whats up, once I have it run up to temperature and some oil back on the bore.

I *thought* it was probably headgasket, and genuine coolant smelling a bit funny, guess I was wrong, but I did drive it 5-6 miles like it, hopefully it's not too much.

At least I know what unburnt fuel from an exhaust smells like, and what it does for your eyes now! Burning eyeballs and difficult to breathe. Got a few funny looks on the way home

Replacement injector is going to be sent tomorrow, well it better be or I will be getting cross... I'll fit that, swap the oil out and go from there.... whats the worst that can happen? I Stroke it out to 2.5l

[Bowie69]

New injector in, driven about 4 miles to get rid of excessive oil in bore form me trying to lube it, and still smoking like a trooper.

When it was cold it was awful, but not much better when hot, very visible trail in rear view mirror.

Compression tester on it's way, I lost mine somewhere in the black hold called the garage, I bet it is a long way down on #1.

Now I just have to write that email to the injector supplier... fun.

[Bowie69]

170, 185, 180, 185, 185

That was hot, so #1 is definitely down, however on most recent trip the smoke was gone(!)

Confused now, yes I did oil the cylinder, but it wouldn't have taken that long to burn it all off would it? (6-7 miles or so).

Any advice?

[mrtat2k9]

iv just had one of mine stick open have you changed the oil since you had the problem and how much oil did you put down the bore has some thimes it can take a long time to get out the exhaust boxes

[Sleeper_Avant]

do a cold "dry" test, then a "wet" (2 squirts of oil from oil can, mineral type oil) test

then a hot "dry" teat, then a "wet" test and return the results.

might just be carbon on the valve seats after a missfire, or you might have ****ed a valve/piston running it too rich

[Bowie69]

Probably about 10 good squirts of either EP or 20w50, whatever was in the can

I drove it tonight, about 16 miles or so, no noticeable smoke in RVM, I know that doesn't mean it isn't, but it appears SO much better. Can't really tell if down on power.

Will do the cold dry/wet warm dry/wet and see what they return. Was quite pleased the others were pretty consistent.

[Bowie69]

Actually changed the oil today, immediately after finding that the smoke was abating.... VR1 Racing 20w50 went in, lovely oil, but didn't want to waste £26 if I was pulling it all apart!

Oil pressure is now higher than it was on the old oil (also VR1), even before it was contaminated with petrol, at 2 bar hot at idle. over 4bar at 2000RPM.

[K Simmonds]

I suspect the smoke was being caused by fuel and/or oil in the exhaust boxes, 10 PSI isn't enough of a difference to worry about and those figures are well within tolerances.

[Bowie69]

I am beginning to come to that conclusion.... had to get the exhaust really hot to get it to burn off, making some sense.

I'll note the figures later today, and then re-check in a month or so.

[K Simmonds]

Yeah that's the best bet, get a few 100 miles done and recheck. I'd be pretty pissed with the injector suppliers, did you have any sort of warranty remaining on them?

[Bowie69]

Yeah, 12 month/12,000 miles, they have replaced the one FOC, (though I had to send failed one back) and actually treated me OK once I suggested that having my daily driver off the road for over a week would be quite detrimental to me.....

I haven't explained that there may be more permanent damage yet, will see what happens and then fire off an email if there are further issues.