D21 Injector Change

[HRH]

Well I was certainly annoyed yesterday. I was supposed to come in to help out on my day off, and I told my fellow assistant manager Alex that I'd be there about 8:30. I go out to leave, start the hardbody. Sounded like a washing machine falling down a flight of stairs. Running on 2 or 3 cylinders. So I wait for a second, nothing changes. Rev it up, nothing changes. Shut it off and figure it must be a spark issue.

 

Take of the distributor cap which is only a year or two old. Find the top bottom had worn an oblong hole and it's cocked 45 degrees and wearing oddly. That must be the problem, right? So I limp her down to the Monroe NAPA and get a new cap. Still running like shit. Funny though it clears out a little bit when I'm higher in the rpms. I get a spare set of plugs and a rotor, head back home.

 

Took out the plugs, they look perfect. Hmmmm. Call a few people. One mentions fuel separation of ethanol, which is certainly possible. Dump some isopropyl alcohol in the tank and a bit of Marvel Mystery Oil. Still running like shit.

 

At that point, I grab the timing light to confirm spark since the plugs looked good. Yep, every wire is hitting like it should. Ruled out the coil since the likelihood of failing down low and working up high is pretty much not likely at all. I'm thinking evil thoughts like the ECU is going hayware or the CAS in the distributor is giving up the ghost.

 

But given the information I've gathered I decided it wasn't a spark or electrical issue. Had to be fuel. So I start pulling injector connectors while it's running. Pull off number 1, no change. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 change. Put number 1 connector on number 2 injector, it changes. Whack injector 1 with a ratchet. Nothing.

 

At this point I'm riding the bike to stores and waiting on the shuttle unless I want to ride 8 miles to the main store to get my injectors. As it was I rode 6.3 yesterday, could have easily done the ride to the main.

 

So about three hours later I have the injectors and seals (which didn't come with the new injectors to my annoyance). Decided to replace all 4 seeing as I had to take off the rail anyway and they're all original 163,000 injectors. Which if they work generally they're fine, but everything else on the truck is new, no reason not to change them all.

 

Funny enough, Ken from Kentech here in Spokane called me back (I had left a help message on his shop phone; got it figured out before he called back) and said spring and fall is when Nissan injectors like to fail, seems to be related to summer and winter blends in our shitty fuel. Granted I'm sure the mileage has something to do with it, but ethanol separation and getting a load of bad gas doesn't affect the fuel filter like it used to. The whole charge goes through and separates out little air/moisture pockets which then get burned. Usually leads to shit running until the motor's warm in which case it can digest the mixture.

 

Anyway, the truck is back to normal, in fact has a lot more power on the upper end now, rather hoping my mileage improves a bit as well. We shall see. Think I've probably been running with a crap injector for a while now. Just took a little time for it to fail completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spades]

glad you narrowed it down! most of the time, you can ohm test the injectors to find a bad one, or if you have a labscope narrow it down that way (in case anyone has an issue like this in the future reading this thread and doesn't want to pull a fuel rail).

 

And yeah, between the crap gas we get here and the ethenol, we are pretty much screwed.