Fuel Injector Rebuild and O2 Sensor
02-07-2003 | 07:51 AM
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Fuel Injector Rebuild and O2 Sensor
Yup thats what the boys at Toyota said I needed. So now after seeing what it'll cost me for them to do it :eek:. I start thinkin, How hard could it be? The O2 Sensor is easy but the "rebuild" worries me a little. Does anyone know how invloved this is and is it something I should attempt myself? Any Input is welcome
02-07-2003 | 07:56 AM
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From: SC
I know O2 sensors aren't cheap, but I'm not sure I would try to rebuild one. That seems like one of those things that I would just spend the money for to prevent future headaches.
As far as rebuilding a fuel injector, how much is that going to cost? I know those aren't cheap either, but I would be curious to hear the difference in price between rebuilding vs. new.
As far as rebuilding a fuel injector, how much is that going to cost? I know those aren't cheap either, but I would be curious to hear the difference in price between rebuilding vs. new.
02-07-2003 | 08:48 AM
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From: Towson, MD
I've never heard of rebuilding a fuel injector. As far as I know you clean them and replace the o-rings or just replace the whole injector. I just had 6 injectors cleaned and o-rings replaced, it cost me $11 per injector, but I had to send them off for a week. O2 sensor replacement isn't hard, just hit with PB blaster a couple days before you want to remove them.
02-07-2003 | 01:04 PM
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From: Auburn, GA
Originally posted by Dr. Zhivago
Did they mention having them Ultrasonically cleaned? You should get a second opinion if you can.
My .02
Dr. Z
Did they mention having them Ultrasonically cleaned? You should get a second opinion if you can.
My .02
Dr. Z
I have access to a small ultrasonic cleaner here at work. I've never pulled a fuel injector out to really look at it, but I was just wondering what all is involved in cleaning injectors. If new o-rings and a good ultrasonic cleaning is all that's needed, maybe I can do this mainetenance task myself? Of course I wouldn't be able to check and balance the flow between all of them, so I don't know what it would be worth.
Just curious...
02-07-2003 | 02:31 PM
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From: Southern MD USA
Re: Fuel Injector Rebuild and O2 Sensor
Originally posted by Mossback74
Yup thats what the boys at Toyota said I needed. So now after seeing what it'll cost me for them to do it :eek:. I start thinkin, How hard could it be? The O2 Sensor is easy but the "rebuild" worries me a little. Does anyone know how invloved this is and is it something I should attempt myself? Any Input is welcome
Yup thats what the boys at Toyota said I needed. So now after seeing what it'll cost me for them to do it :eek:. I start thinkin, How hard could it be? The O2 Sensor is easy but the "rebuild" worries me a little. Does anyone know how invloved this is and is it something I should attempt myself? Any Input is welcome
Gadget
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02-07-2003 | 10:18 PM
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Thanks, Here's some more info
First of all thanks for all the resonses. My rig is a 94 4Runner with the 3.0V6, 123k miles, Auto trans. Its got a K&N Filter and 31"tires but other then that it's stock. The main problem has happened a few times over the last month. This is only after it had been running a while, and then letting it sit for 20 min or so. When starting it misses on one or two cylinders. if I hold it at about 1500 rpm it'll run (rough) for about 60 sec then what ever is ailing it goes away (burns off?) and it'll run fine. It happened once after driving it pretty hard, once after washing it, and once for no apparent reason at all. My First thought was the head gaskets were going and this may be the case still, but filled with higher octance gas and added some Fuel Injector Cleanor and the problem went away. It seems that poor quality gas may be irritating the problem. (continued)
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02-07-2003 | 10:30 PM
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continued
In any case a couple days ago it was a cold morning and after letting it warm up for about 5min, I shift into reverse and the "Check Engine" light comes on. Everything was running fine so I drove it to work and made an Appt. with Toyota to pul codes the next day. Well on the way home the light goes off. I took it in yesterday just because and they tell me the 02 sensor is going bad (I think is what cause the light) and my fuel infectors need a rebuild. They say its running lean. Now when describing the "rebuild" they did mention having to send the injectors some where. This may be the ulta sonic cleaning. Here's the Est. cost they gave me :
o2 sensor Parts & Labor 206.00
Rebuild Injectors 180-280 parts, 240 Labor
When I bought my rig I got a service contract with it. but appanently fuel injectors have NOTHING to do with the engine:confused: . In any case, for now its running good and I'll just spend the near 2 bucks a gallon for Super.
o2 sensor Parts & Labor 206.00
Rebuild Injectors 180-280 parts, 240 Labor
When I bought my rig I got a service contract with it. but appanently fuel injectors have NOTHING to do with the engine:confused: . In any case, for now its running good and I'll just spend the near 2 bucks a gallon for Super.
02-08-2003 | 05:04 AM
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From: El Paso, TX
I would replace that O2 sensor and run some fuel system/fuel injector cleaner through it before I dropped $500 on getting them rebuilt.
As far as good FI cleaners, I use Techron on a tank of premium. Theoretically the premium is wasted money, but my '95 3.0 seems to run better on and definitely runs better after one of these treatments. Some guys swear by "Sea foam" but I haven't tried it (haven't found it ).
You might even try one of those Snap On Engine Vacs. Cost you about $100.
As far as good FI cleaners, I use Techron on a tank of premium. Theoretically the premium is wasted money, but my '95 3.0 seems to run better on and definitely runs better after one of these treatments. Some guys swear by "Sea foam" but I haven't tried it (haven't found it ).
You might even try one of those Snap On Engine Vacs. Cost you about $100.
02-08-2003 | 05:46 AM
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From: Southern MD USA
It sounds like you have a leaky injector or two.
Like the other guy said, I would have a Snap On Motor Vac carbon depletion service done. The way this works is that the the fuel line is rerouted from the Motor Vac machine and your engine runs off of the chemical in the machine for about an hour or so.
This will clean the injectors, the intake valves and the combustion chamber of all the carbon that is in there. If you injectors are dirty that can cause them to stick open a little bit and leak fuel when the engine is off causing an over rich condition in those cylinders and can contaminate the oil with fuel.
On your engine this service will not clean the cold start injector, but you can take that out yourself and have that one injector cleaned at a fuel injection shop and that will save you a lot of money.
The Motor Vac Service is called the Viagra for engines. You will not believe how much better your engine will run once you have this done.
When the shop said you needed a new O2 Sensor, did he test it or just pull a code and decided it was bad?? What I am getting at is that there may be nothing wrong with it. If he did the proper testing then that would confirm it was bad, but I will bet you a box of donuts that he did not. It is also something that you can replace your self and save a lot of money if it is bad.
Good luck,
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
Like the other guy said, I would have a Snap On Motor Vac carbon depletion service done. The way this works is that the the fuel line is rerouted from the Motor Vac machine and your engine runs off of the chemical in the machine for about an hour or so.
This will clean the injectors, the intake valves and the combustion chamber of all the carbon that is in there. If you injectors are dirty that can cause them to stick open a little bit and leak fuel when the engine is off causing an over rich condition in those cylinders and can contaminate the oil with fuel.
On your engine this service will not clean the cold start injector, but you can take that out yourself and have that one injector cleaned at a fuel injection shop and that will save you a lot of money.
The Motor Vac Service is called the Viagra for engines. You will not believe how much better your engine will run once you have this done.
When the shop said you needed a new O2 Sensor, did he test it or just pull a code and decided it was bad?? What I am getting at is that there may be nothing wrong with it. If he did the proper testing then that would confirm it was bad, but I will bet you a box of donuts that he did not. It is also something that you can replace your self and save a lot of money if it is bad.
Good luck,
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
02-08-2003 | 06:39 AM
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mmmm donuts..
I bet dollars to donuts that they just pulled the code on the 02 sensor. You like maple bars? The Snap On Motor Vac sounds like a good idea. Is this something a shop would perform? and if so is there any in my area (Dr. Z?) Forgive me if I am totally clueless, I've never heard of this before.
I suspect gadget is right on the money about the seals being bad on the injectors. I'd like to do as much as possible myself. To save money and because I enjoy it. All my previous experience is on carburated cars, this is my first automobile with a computer
. So if its possible to pull the injectors and just replace the seals myself I'd do it. But if you think its best left to people who do it often and only mess up 50% of the time I'll take it to a shop.
What I really need is a Manual for this thing be it Haynes or whatever. I need to know all the parts I'm looking at.
Anyway, gonna fill up with Techron, get some injector cleaner, and price 02 sensors in case that light comes on again.
Thank you everybody for the Info!
(I should have some pics of my runner soon)
-Dan-
I suspect gadget is right on the money about the seals being bad on the injectors. I'd like to do as much as possible myself. To save money and because I enjoy it. All my previous experience is on carburated cars, this is my first automobile with a computer
. So if its possible to pull the injectors and just replace the seals myself I'd do it. But if you think its best left to people who do it often and only mess up 50% of the time I'll take it to a shop. What I really need is a Manual for this thing be it Haynes or whatever. I need to know all the parts I'm looking at.Anyway, gonna fill up with Techron, get some injector cleaner, and price 02 sensors in case that light comes on again.
Thank you everybody for the Info!
(I should have some pics of my runner soon)
-Dan-
02-08-2003 | 07:01 AM
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From: Southern MD USA
OK, let me try this again.
There are no seals in the injector like you are thinking of. It is a precision metal to metal seal, like the valves in the engine. If they get dirty, they will not seal properly and will leak when the engine is shut off. It will also affect the spray pattern and unbalance the injectors from one another. Some will deliver more fuel then the others causing a power imbalance. Usually cleaning them is the answer.
There are different ways to clean them. You can take them out and send them off to a fuel injection shop like www.RCEng.com, or you can leave them right where they are and let the Motor Vac service clean them while it cleans the rest of the intake track and combustion chamber. Getting all that carbon out in one shot will make a world of difference. You just can not imagine how much carbon builds up in an engine, let alone the intake valves. You can get a bunch of carbon build up on the back side of the intake valves you would think it was a hornets nest.
This carbon actually come from the gasoline. Think of gasoline as coal disolved in a solvent. When the solvent evaporates away you have that black hard stuff left behind and it will continue to build up until you have performance and emmision problems.
That carbon on the back side of the intake valves can also cause poor cold weather starting and warm up performance. That build up of carbon dries out and can act like a spunge soaking up the needed extra fuel during a cold start and warm up. Once it becomes saturated then the problem can kind of go away.
The Motor Vac service addresses all these problems at one time, the same time. If you just take the injectors out and clean them you will have nice clean injectors with a nice spray patteren, but all that carbon will be in the rest of the engine, or you can get it ALL done in one simple treatment.
Good luck!
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
There are no seals in the injector like you are thinking of. It is a precision metal to metal seal, like the valves in the engine. If they get dirty, they will not seal properly and will leak when the engine is shut off. It will also affect the spray pattern and unbalance the injectors from one another. Some will deliver more fuel then the others causing a power imbalance. Usually cleaning them is the answer.
There are different ways to clean them. You can take them out and send them off to a fuel injection shop like www.RCEng.com, or you can leave them right where they are and let the Motor Vac service clean them while it cleans the rest of the intake track and combustion chamber. Getting all that carbon out in one shot will make a world of difference. You just can not imagine how much carbon builds up in an engine, let alone the intake valves. You can get a bunch of carbon build up on the back side of the intake valves you would think it was a hornets nest.
This carbon actually come from the gasoline. Think of gasoline as coal disolved in a solvent. When the solvent evaporates away you have that black hard stuff left behind and it will continue to build up until you have performance and emmision problems.
That carbon on the back side of the intake valves can also cause poor cold weather starting and warm up performance. That build up of carbon dries out and can act like a spunge soaking up the needed extra fuel during a cold start and warm up. Once it becomes saturated then the problem can kind of go away.
The Motor Vac service addresses all these problems at one time, the same time. If you just take the injectors out and clean them you will have nice clean injectors with a nice spray patteren, but all that carbon will be in the rest of the engine, or you can get it ALL done in one simple treatment.
Good luck!
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
02-08-2003 | 07:34 AM
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that sounds better. I was led to belive that there were actual rubber seals on the injectors by the "technician" that I spoke to. I belive his words were "the seals get worn and corroded and become hard as a rock" well if thats not the case the engine vac would just be peachy. Thanks a lot Gadget.
02-08-2003 | 07:41 AM
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I don't really know. Search for Motor Vac on the Net and see what you can find. Motor Vac private lables the machines for other companies like Snap On. They maybe able to point you to a shop that provides this service using their equipment.
BG Products also has a simular service, but I have never used it. It is a little less complicated. They connect one of those bug sprayer type jugs with a hand pump on it to pressurize the tank and it connect to the fuel like like the Motor Vac service and the engine is run on the chemical like the Motor Vac service.
The local government fleet shop that I hang out in started using the BG System on the new Impalla police cars to cure a constant performance problem. It seem that the East Coast gasoline which has crap in it that is mandated by the Feds for our area is making a mess out of the fuel injectors in these engines. It gums them up bad causing all kinds of performance problems. GM's answer is this BG Service about every 30,000 miles or sooner if the performance problem presents. It is an East Coast problem only from what GM says.
I have seen the BG Service done, but I have not done it myself or had it done to any of my vehicles. I know that BG has a great reputation and all the other stuff of theirs that I have used has been fantastic.
I do get the Motor Vac service done to my vehicles about every 60,000 miles and there has always, ALWAYS, been a noticable performance gain.
There are other companies doing simular services, like Justice Brothers (junk), Wynn, and so on, but I have no personal experience with them. My brother's shop was using Motor Vac, but switched to BG, and now Justice Brothers. He says that the JB stuff just is no good and fights with the owner to go back to the other stuff.
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
BG Products also has a simular service, but I have never used it. It is a little less complicated. They connect one of those bug sprayer type jugs with a hand pump on it to pressurize the tank and it connect to the fuel like like the Motor Vac service and the engine is run on the chemical like the Motor Vac service.
The local government fleet shop that I hang out in started using the BG System on the new Impalla police cars to cure a constant performance problem. It seem that the East Coast gasoline which has crap in it that is mandated by the Feds for our area is making a mess out of the fuel injectors in these engines. It gums them up bad causing all kinds of performance problems. GM's answer is this BG Service about every 30,000 miles or sooner if the performance problem presents. It is an East Coast problem only from what GM says.
I have seen the BG Service done, but I have not done it myself or had it done to any of my vehicles. I know that BG has a great reputation and all the other stuff of theirs that I have used has been fantastic.
I do get the Motor Vac service done to my vehicles about every 60,000 miles and there has always, ALWAYS, been a noticable performance gain.
There are other companies doing simular services, like Justice Brothers (junk), Wynn, and so on, but I have no personal experience with them. My brother's shop was using Motor Vac, but switched to BG, and now Justice Brothers. He says that the JB stuff just is no good and fights with the owner to go back to the other stuff.
Gadget
www.GadgetOnline.com
02-08-2003 | 07:46 AM
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From: Southern MD USA
Originally posted by Mossback74
that sounds better. I was led to belive that there were actual rubber seals on the injectors by the "technician" that I spoke to. I belive his words were "the seals get worn and corroded and become hard as a rock" well if thats not the case the engine vac would just be peachy. Thanks a lot Gadget.
that sounds better. I was led to belive that there were actual rubber seals on the injectors by the "technician" that I spoke to. I belive his words were "the seals get worn and corroded and become hard as a rock" well if thats not the case the engine vac would just be peachy. Thanks a lot Gadget.
If you injectors are removed from the engine you absolutely shoudl replace the top O ring and the bottom gromment and depending on injector type the bottom O rings. That is a given.
Gadget
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02-08-2003 | 07:55 AM
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From: Victoria, BC
02-08-2003 | 08:12 AM
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Ok so he wasn't way off base with the seal thing. But I think I'm going to try that motor vac before I spend all the money getting their "rebuild". and if it is a problem that can be solved with the motor vac at a shop and possible seal replacement and injector cleaning that can be done at home. That would certainly make me happy. Where's my wrench
02-09-2003 | 06:37 PM
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Sorry for jumping in at the end!
I'm on my first EFI auto also and If you had a carburator I would say vaporlock! Really the only place I have heard of a EFI engine vaporlocking has been in aircraft on the ground heat-soaking air cooled engines. Im not sure, but I think that the factory manual has a fuel injector inspection/testing portion! Also on the carbon subject my experience with the good'ole american V8 says to use a spray bottle with water on a running engine to remove carbon buildup!!! On the flushes My experience has inspired me to get gas from different places so as not to let any one treatment leave its residue on my valves and fuel system. I really dont know if my wisdom applies here, but for the record I'm trying! anybody wanna correct me please feel free!
_travis
I'm on my first EFI auto also and If you had a carburator I would say vaporlock! Really the only place I have heard of a EFI engine vaporlocking has been in aircraft on the ground heat-soaking air cooled engines. Im not sure, but I think that the factory manual has a fuel injector inspection/testing portion! Also on the carbon subject my experience with the good'ole american V8 says to use a spray bottle with water on a running engine to remove carbon buildup!!! On the flushes My experience has inspired me to get gas from different places so as not to let any one treatment leave its residue on my valves and fuel system. I really dont know if my wisdom applies here, but for the record I'm trying! anybody wanna correct me please feel free!
_travis
