Finally got my truck fixed!!!!!!!!!

[mrgrimm]

Well it's been about 6 months since I started working on my truck and finally got it finished about 30 minutes ago. I replaced all 8 injector sleeves with the heads still on the engine, in the truck. Mainly it took me so long because I just didn't kick myself in the a** and get it done. I guess I was nervous I screwed something up, because when I tapped into the sleeves toi remove them, I accidently tapped the injector bore in the head on #2 pretty bad. I finally came to the conclusion that I was pretty much F'd either way so I went ahead and smeared some JB weld down in there and sanded it smooth with emery cloth. I put new o-rings and washers on all the injectors, said a prayer and spent all day today installing them and buttoning everything back up. Sure enough it took about 10 mintues of cranking before it fired, and when it did it smoked like crazy for about 20 minutes but my truck is ALIVE! No CEL's, misses, hesitations, strange noises, etc. so I am very excited (and a little proud of myself!)

Heres a list of the few snags I ran into...

I had to undo my PITA 4in. downpipe to access the plug on the back of the head, not too big a deal though.

USE THE STEEL GUIDE when you tap the sleeves out or else you could end up like me doing the whole job on a prayer!

When installing the new sleeves be sure to wack the tool pretty hard and listen for a tone change when they bottom out. I almost did not seat #1 all the way and luckily the sealant did not set up before I realized my mistake.

I had to get creative with a 2x4, a pry bar, and a buddy to seat #4 injector all the way, even when oiled up they are pretty hard to get down all way.

BE SURE TO DRAIN THE COOLANT before pulling a sleeve out or you will be like me and dump gallons of coolant into the cylinder, etc. Befoire I fired my truck up today I drained the oil and about a gallon of coolant came out first. Now I need to go through the process of a few oil changes next week and draining the coolant again to get all the diesel out of it, too.

This was not a snag, but it took me a minute to figure the best way to get everything out of the cylinders AFTER installing the injectors. I ended up pulling all 8 glow plugs then crawling under the truck and jumping the little wire to the big wire on the starter. If you are like me and had to unhook your exhaust at the turbo, watch out because you will get soaked with coolant/oil and that was not fun.

All in all it was kind of a pain, but I saved a lot of $$ doing it myself, and if I was more motivated I could have done the whole job in a weekend.

I paid $88 for the sleeves and about $70 for the o-ring kit = fixed truck
oh yeah I bought some tools for about $300 from a guy on this site which helped out a ton, could not have done the job w/o them...

[Bushwakd]

Congrats on the install.
I dread the day when I have to do it. I have done several injector installs but no injector sleeves.

[Grease Monkey]

This is proabably a stupid question, But what causes the injector sleeves to fail? Or needing to be replaced? I have just under 130k Im gonna do injectors in the spring after the procharger if they last long enough. But I was wondering if I should do the sleeves at the same time? My trucks been babied its whole life tho, Im just not too sure what causes the failure or when its a necessity to replace them. Sorry to jack your thread, just have no idea about this. Congrats to gettin her runnin tho! Hope it lasts and you dont have further problems with that one sleeve.

[mrgrimm]

Bushwakd, hopefully it never happens to your truck, if you have done injectors sucessfully then the sleeves shouldn't be that big a deal for you since you are familiar with it all. I wasn't familiar with it at all, thats why I made so many mistakes!

Greasemonkey, I have heard that the sleeves fail due to overheating, or cavitation of the coolant (eating through metal because of air bubbles caused by vibrations) to the best of my knowledge. I didn't know this before I had this problem but you are supposed to put an additive in your coolant every so often, and change it out/flush it more often than a typical gas car.

I had diesel in my coolant @135,000 and I bought the truck w/ 120,000? and didn't know any history of it. I am not sure if a cracked head/block will give the same symptoms, but I sure hope not because if I did all that work for nothing that would be pretty depressing. I guess I will just have to keep an eye on the coolant and see if it's filling with fuel again...

[Lightninquick]

congrats on the install! the jb weld discription was alittle scary. that little hicup is the exact reason i built a better mousetrap so to speak.

i also think wacking the sleeve into place is not the best way to do the install.

with the right tools everything is a snap,,,,good job