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Title: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Feb 17th, 2007, 8:59pm Next week Maplin will have an offer on their small ultrasonic cleaning tank and I'm considering buying one so that I can try cleaning my diesel injectors. My question is, has anyone tried this and does it make a noticeable difference? As some will know, I have the early (115PS) diesel and I'm unimpressed by it's lack of power (struggles to tow a small caravan), noise and poor economy (it never betters about 30mpg, even on the motorway). Although it's only covered 85K miles I'm beginning to wonder if it would benefit from the cleaning process. Also, although the cleaning tank is designed for plain water, that's probably a bad idea to put the injectors in so can I use meths, petrol or diesel instead without ******* up the tank? Finally, what parts will I need to buy to remove and refit the injectors, such as sealing washers and tools? One last question - what's the best grade of oil to use in the TD? When I bought it I used 15W-40 and back in November I used 10W-40 which seemed to make it a bit more responsive but at the expense of economy (it used to get about 38mpg on motorway with 15W-40 despite not feeling as lively). Darren |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 17th, 2007, 11:54pm darren, i have one of those cleaners from maplin, it works quite well, and i have cleaned my diesel injectors in it using water and a squirt of washing up liquid, then left em to dry out for a few days. however, these were injectors that were second hand i'd bought to replace mine, so, i dont know what difference the cleaning made, but, even though they'd only covered about 1000 miles a fair bit of crap did come out. i then cleaned the old injectors with it, gunk oozed out... the main part you need for the job is a 28mm window socket available on ebay or you can borrow mine, a torx bit to remove the 4 cam cover bolts, torque wrench. you should put new copper sealing washers on the injectors, most independant spares shops sell them loose in various sizes. its a pretty simple job, the only real problem i had was removing the old injectors, over the years they seemed to have rusted in, but a bit of wd40 and patience worked. as for oil, at the mo im using 10w40 semi synthetic but might try fully synthetic soon. mines the same engine as yours, pretty sluggish, but the change of injectors has made a world of difference to noise and smoothness. what also helps is to clean the vacuum pipe from the top of the fuel pump to the underside of the turbo (i think), im also pretty certain my turbo isnt working, although the car pulls ok and is smooth, theres no noticeable difference when i hit 2200+ revs when you're supposed to notice it. hope this helps, pm me for any more.... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Feb 18th, 2007, 11:55am Thanks for the info, sounds like my engine may not be out of spec then and may benefit from injector cleaning. Not sure I'd want to be without the car for a few days though! Out of interest, how much do the windowed sockets cost? I appreciate your offer but given the weight of it I expect postage both ways would probably be half the cost and I imagine the tool will fit other cars using the Bosch injectors so it'd be a worthwhile investment. I was going to put some 20W-50 oil in as thicker oils do quieten the engine (and it is specced for this engine down to -10) but I fear it'd do horrible things to the economy, or maybe I'm just paranoid. Won't know until I try it I suppose and at least it's cheap! Darren |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 18th, 2007, 12:26pm theres normally 5 or 6 advertised on ebay for around 7 quid, but, they normally charge stupid postage of a tenner, cant remember the company name on ebay but i found one for 6 quid with 3 quid postage. you could clean the injectors, connect em up but not fit em then turn the key a few times to pump diesel through em to expel any water. the thicker oil might 'come into its own' in the summer when temperatures are hotter. is you're engine really that noisy? |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Feb 18th, 2007, 2:32pm It's noisier than I would like, though every now and then (usually when started from cold after several days out of use) it can be quiet. The main problem is lack of power and fuel consumption, after all, I can turn the radio up to mask the din! I thought being a 2.5TD it'd have bags of power for towing, and whilst I don't expect it to acheive the 45mpg the book gives for driving at 56mph, I thought it'd be able to get 40mpg at 60mph (easily maintained on the motorway with cruise control), especially as mazzy_j gets those types of figures and his car has much more miles on it. Having said that, my car is what? 12yr old and only just got to 85K so that's only 7K miles/year - perhaps it's had a life of stop-start journeys and more in need of injector cleaning than one averaging 12-14K/year? Basically it boils down to this: An early Disco TDi would be a better tow car, can seat seven (or at least I'd buy a 7 seater), is cheaper to insure and in my case, probably little difference in fuel consumption being as they can manage 30+mpg and that's all mine is doing. Turning back to the problem mine has, it previously did 37-38mpg on the motorway with 15W-40 oil, but struggled towing a 900Kg caravan in fifth gear on the motorway (the cruise control kept dropping out every time there was a slight incline). I want to borrow my parents' caravan which is around 1400Kg but seriously doubt I'd ever get beyond fourth gear which obviously hammers the economy over 400 miles. :( Since going to 10W-40 (which is what mazzy_j uses) it seems more responsive and I haven't tried towing a caravan again, but now economy is down to 30-31mpg, hardly improving on the motorway, so I doubt it'd tow better than it did previously. I think my turbo does work, you can feel a difference at about 2200rpm, but it's not massive compared to other TDs I've driven (Ford, Rover, Toyota, etc.) and in any case, 2200rpm is illegal when towing in fifth gear and doing 60mph in fifth is around 2000rpm at most, during which the turbo is having little effect and I'm relying on the native torque (or lack of) of the engine to keep a steady speed. Darren |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by Simmo on Feb 18th, 2007, 3:06pm Darren, Looks like you can get a socket for under £10.Here (http://www.motorshack.com/acatalog/Special_Sockets.html) ;) But the postage is nearly as much. This is a Laser tools item Code 3299 and should be available from a motor factors in your area. www.lasertools.co.uk. Most factors deal with Sealey too.This link is via a mail order firm which Mike F used recently and got good service. Here (http://www.justoffbase.co.uk/Tool-Shop/Diesel-Injector-Sockets). |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by Matt on Feb 18th, 2007, 5:15pm hey, this ultra sonic cleaner sounds intresting, ive found 2 on maplin, i assume it's the £80 i should be looking at? any body had experience on cleaning petrol injectors? matt |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by scorpio_man on Feb 18th, 2007, 5:29pm hi matt they've also got a smaller one for £40. about cd sized, so should do it as well. hth |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by Gasguzzla on Feb 18th, 2007, 6:41pm I got my injector socket here; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160049417499 Try contacting seller if it's not current and don't use mytoolsdirect.com - I had to neg him last week. Btw I get quite a kick from the turbo and around 40 mpg on a run but really heavy vibration at 1500 rpm - not nice. Was thinking the injectors so will watch this with interest...... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 18th, 2007, 11:11pm the cleaner i bought from maplins just before xmas was 25 quid, its a mains one, has a tray, plastic holder for watches and one for cd's. similar can be had for around the same price on ebay. personally i wouldnt spend 80 quid on one unless its type specific i.e. cleaning surgical stuff, mines handy for jewellery, cd's, ink cartridges etc, oooh, and small engine parts.... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 18th, 2007, 11:25pm that one looks the same as mine gas. i recently did a trip from s.e. london to oxford and back with the new injectors, bearing in mind it took 2 hours to get through london, the same on way back, i averaged 38mpg, which im quite pleased with.... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by martin_rowe on Feb 19th, 2007, 8:52am UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ALLOW WATER TO GET INTO DIESEL INJECTORS. in fact just handling the internals of a dismantled injector with 'dry' hands usually causes enough corrosion to damage the internals. in fact you are better using a specialist injector cleaner, the best I have used is the 'FORTE' diesel injector cleaner. or remove them & get them properly cleaned & re set by a 'Diesel' shop. |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 19th, 2007, 12:26pm martin, you cant dismantle these or get them re set, they're sealed units. as for water getting in, well it will anyway under normal use through moisture in the atmosphere, hence some diesels having a water warning light telling you its time to drain the filter..... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by martin_rowe on Feb 19th, 2007, 2:15pm under 'normal' use no water / condensation can get in to an injector, all diesels have systems in place to remove it from the fuel. |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 19th, 2007, 11:05pm martin, how does that work? i've only had a couple of diesels before, but the both had some sort of sensor telling you to drain the filter bowl, surely over the years some of that water will get through? |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by martin_rowe on Feb 20th, 2007, 8:48am the sensor is just a warning, diesels used to have a sedimentor / aglomerator unit (usually called a pre filter)which allowed larger items of sediment (dirt) and water to settle out (oil floats on water) on later vehicles its all taken care of by the fuel filters (we now have better fuel uality) but many of which still have the facility to 'drain' off any water / condensation that collects at the bottom. thats why it is imperitive that diesel fuel filters are changed regularly. |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by Gasguzzla on Feb 21st, 2007, 1:40am Have to say my diesel injectors do dismantle... If you use a 22mm spanner on the top and try to undo the injector the middle unscrews. Thats why I bought an injector socket. Inside is a spring and two washer/shim thingies.... After putting it back together it leaked diesel - so I used that white plumbers tape stuff on the threads. Then the blanking on the rear injectors unused fuel return fell off so fuel leaked out of there. I put a self tapping screw in that. Have I made a major fau pas or two.......? |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 21st, 2007, 11:27am superb gas ;D interesting about the water, so, clean em with the ultrasonic cleaner, but not with soapy water like i did ::), maybe meths or petrol..... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by mazzy_j on Feb 22nd, 2007, 9:41am tali after hearing how quiet (!?) your car is compared to mine i could probably do with either renewing or having my injectors refurbished considering its milage. but seeing as it pulls ok and im still gettin around 42mpg on the motorway (really need to turn back down the on-boost fueling at somepoint because cars following me tend to disappear when i floor it ::) ) i'm not sure it'll be worth my while spending £££ when its working fine. running it on cooking oil you're supposed to loose about 5-10% in power and economy, although i've only ever run my car purely on diesel driving it home when i bought it and 2 weeks in the summer driving around europe so i cant be 100% certain of this! it might be worth my while buying an injector socket and giving the injectors a good dousing in carb cleaner and simply see what condition they're in. Phil, you say you can't feel the turbo kicking in, is that in normal driving or foot to the floor? maybe at the next we're both at we could go out for a quick drive to see if they drive differently... Matt |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by LiverpaulH on Feb 22nd, 2007, 10:02am Darren, your diesel seems to be very like the old diesel I used to have, which was very noisy and lethargic and never managed more than 30mpg on average. Mine had been owned for a few years by an old gent who only used it short hop, and over the time I had it, it continually improved as I floored it everywhere, but never became that good. Even so I'm still surprised that you struggle with towing such a small caravan, I had no problem maintaining 60 pulling a granada estate on a car trailer, although as a matter of course when towing with that car I kept to 4th gear, and that may be the difference. The new one I replaced it with is quicker and has better fuel economy and has pulled about 3ton without struggling (currently 110,000miles). On yours doing the injectors should help, but you may end up ultimately doing what I did and sourcing a better one! Paul |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 22nd, 2007, 11:53am yeah i've tried flooring it in second and 3rd, it pulls well in both and the revs increase on a smooth curve, but no noticeable 'kick'. mine often used to smoke badly, i tried most things, some helped, but the new injectors seemed to have cured it. i also found in the past that mine was very sluggish on gradients, i remember i picked up a tv i bought on ebay from westerham, i came back via Ide hill, a very long steep hill, the tv only weighed 50kg, i ended up having to drop into 2nd with plumes of black smoke behind me. i might pop back down there soon and see if theres any difference with the new injectors.... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by scorpio_man on Feb 22nd, 2007, 12:00pm hi there i take it you've seen this page? http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/replacemap.htm |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 22nd, 2007, 12:13pm yeah had a look at that some time ago, bought a MAP from mazzy, or so we thought, but, looking at the my unit and the one from mazzy (both the same) there isnt the small black MAP thing? this maybe because ours are the 115bhp version not the 125bhp, ours dont have a MAF either. i've been considering changing the turbo itself but i'll probably check and clean all the pipework on mine first..... |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Feb 23rd, 2007, 10:54pm on 02/18/07 at 17:15:53, Matt wrote:
No, there's a smaller one on offer as of now for £29.99 which I've bought. It's large enough to put a CD in so should be adequate for doing injectors. As has been pointed out, water won't do them any good so clean petrol or meths will be tried as soon as I can get a socket and the copper sealing rings (not listed according to local Ford dealer). Having said that, I think I may have a problem with the EGR system - specifically the setting of the TPS as the valve is wide open on half throttle which surely can't be right?! Does anybody know what voltage it should be outputting at idle, or a percentage and I'll work it out? Darren |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by taliban on Feb 23rd, 2007, 11:09pm thats the same cleaner as the one i've got, quite amusing really, maplins are selling it at 29.99 on sale down from 39.99, but before xmas i bought from them for 24.99, which was apparently they're standard price for it, so, its in a sale and has gone up by a fiver lol |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by Simmo on Feb 24th, 2007, 8:12am Darren, does THIS (http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/tpsdata.htm) help you re the TPS. ike. |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Feb 24th, 2007, 3:54pm Excellent, thanks! I often forget to check the main site and that was a classic example... :-[ Darren |
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Title: Re: Ultrasonic cleaning diesel injectors? Post by sector-9 on Mar 9th, 2007, 10:03pm Well the injectors are out and I've managed to get all four in the ultrasonic cleaner side-by-side. I then filled the cleaner with Wynn's diesel injector cleaner and turned the unit on. Wow - I've never seen a liquid go as dark as that as quick as that! It took a little over 10 minutes to turn the clear liquid into something which was difficult to see the tops of the injectors through (and they're only about a quarter inch below the surface). The injectors themself are looking much cleaner on the exterior, and more importantly, all the sooty deposits on the tips seem to have gone (though they are still blackened). Problem is the unit only runs for 3 minutes at a time and I've no idea how long it needs to clean the injectors thoroughly, so I kept turning it on giving a total of about 20 minutes cleaning. Will leave it in the (filthy) injector cleaner overnight to soak completely into the injectors and then I'll empty it and put some fresh stuff in and repeat. After that I'll use meths if it still needs cleaning. I'm hoping to fit the injectors on Sunday morning so I'll report back next week with the results, but looking at the crap that's came off or out it's looking promising... Darren |
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