Hi All,

Sorry my first post here so please bear with me. I appreciate any advice anyone can give on this matter.

Recently my diesel focus started to run very rough. A friend recommended a friend of his so I took the car to him for him to have a look.

He advised there was a misfire so he set about removing the diesel injectors. He removed three no problem however he encountered issues removing the last one. He advised he could not get it out and that I would have to take the car to a garage.

I have taken to car to a local garage who managed to get the troublesome injector out however they advised that the guy who had attempted to remove it earlier had somehow managed to both split the injector so that was leaking diesel everywhere and had also managed to damage the securing bolts and the thread where they thread into in the engine head.

The garage have advised that they will either need to send the damaged injector away to be refurbished or I will require a replacement. They also advise that because of the damage to the securing holes they may need to remove the head to repair or they may need to replace the head altogether.

Of course this will only get the car back to where it was and because the garage was not there to diagnose the car initially they cannot be sure there are no other issues with the engine once this work is done.

To cut a long story short I have decided that I cannot justify spending that amount of money on the car without being pretty certain the car will run. The garage have reinstated the damaged injector in an attempt to get the car started however the car will no longer start so I have had it towed home.

They have refitted the damaged injector, wires and fuel pipes however they did not fit the securing bolts so there are still holes where they should be.

My question to anyone who has any experience or knowledge of this is whether if I purchased another injector myself and replaced without the securing bolts should the engine fire up or do the bolts need to be in place? - is there a possible lack of compression because the bolts are not present?

Is there anything else I could do or use to secure an injector in place?

Please note that I am not looking for advice regarding the original mechanic or anything like that, but safe to say I will not be using him again.

Any advice regarding the problem will be very much appreciated.

Many thanks

Steve

Some pictures will make much clearer how bad the problem actually is.

In my opinion it should be possible to solve this problem without removing the cilinder head but it fully depends on how bad the damage is.

Even if the problem is an injector issue,it's not as simple as just replacing the injector,I think the electronic control module will have to be set up correctly as well.

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC

hi guys,

thanks very much for the replies. I will get some photos over tomorrow morning when it is light.

After some more research I think that I will try a helicoil. I have ordered an injector and some replacement stud and nut to refit. Does anyone know what size helicoil kit I will require for the standard stud?

I have read that the ECU may need to be reset after reconnecting the new injector - is this as simple as disconnecting the -ve on the battery for a few hours and then reconnecting?

Sorry for further questions but am I right in assuming that I can just disconnect the wire connector and the high pressure line from the injector, replace the injector, reattach high pressure line and wires and then try and start her up?

Is it best to replace any seals at the same time and does anyone know how I prime the fuel line on the 1.6TDCI ?

Thanks again guys

After one ore more injectors are replaced the injector correction factors need to be programmed into the PCM. The amount of fuel being injected of every injector has a deviation in relation to the specified values. This deviation is measured by the manufacturer and printed (as a code) on the injector. By programming this code into the PCM the PCM will compensate the deviation of the injector.

During time the PCM compensates the normal wear of the injectors. On a used injector the correction factors (printed on the injector) may be completely different from the real deviation caused by normal wear of the injector. Programming the injector correction factors of a used injector does only compensate the factory deviation of the injector and does not compensate the normal wear of the injector. Depending the wear of the injector the engine can run really bad or in extreme cases not run at all.

Because of this you should only use new injectors or remanufactured injectors. A remanufactured injector from a specialist will meet the original correction factors or come with its own correction factors. My experience is that the price difference between new injectors and remanufacturing an injector is very small.

Priming/bleeding the fuel system on a 1.6 TDCI can be a hell of a job. This type of engine does not have a priming pump integrated into the fuel system so you have to use a suitable external priming pump.

i think the big question mark is what damage to the head is there? if his stripped the thread then you have a problem regardless of what you do with the injector.

What made him think they were the problem in the first place?

the other problem is that when fitting a helicoil you have to redrill and tap out the hole to fit the new helicoil,you may get the swarf fall into your engine from doing this.